


Eat Me, Drink Me

by Mafy_mod



Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: Comedy, Curses, M/M, failed love confessions, magical jelly beans
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-21
Updated: 2019-10-29
Packaged: 2019-11-01 13:06:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 29
Words: 66,611
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17867813
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mafy_mod/pseuds/Mafy_mod
Summary: To celebrate having passed to their second year of high school, Kuroko and the members of the Generation of Miracles meet at Kise's house. They enjoy a good evening together, chatting and eating snacks. But in the next morning, they find out they have been cursed... by magical jelly beans? And the only cure is... confessing to the person they are crushing on!?However, the curse they have fallen victim to will definitely NOT make such a quest an easy one...





	1. Setting up the Game

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, everyone! Mafy's here~ Together with a new revival :D
> 
> Yesterday I was too sleep deprived to function normally so I completely forgot to release this chapter ^.^' But hey, it's here!  
> Having said that, it'll be mainly Eat Me, Drink Me and By Blood and Iron being updated on a weekly basis, with several one-shots in between updates~ Let's aim to finish Eat Me, Drink Me once and for all! XD
> 
> Enjoy!

Kise Ryouta was leisurely humming a song while giving the final touches to his bedroom. In about twenty minutes, visitors were expected to arrive at his house and he definitely didn’t want to show anything that could shame him. Especially since Aomine was one of the people invited and he just had this annoying habit of searching for embarrassing items in other people’s houses. And if he found out his collection of secretly taken photos of a certain someone, he wouldn’t get off of his case for the rest of his life.

 

 _He won’t search around in my desk, where all I have are my school books, right?,_ wondered the blonde while staring to the wooden furniture. He kept staring at it, thinking if he should change the hiding location or not, but the sudden ringing of his house’s doorbell caught his attention.

 

Smiling from ear to ear, Kise immediately exited his bedroom and went down the stairs to open the front door. “Oh! Kurokocchi! Midorimacchi! You’re here<3”

 

“Hello, Kise-kun. Thank you for having us today,” greeted Kuroko Tetsuya, giving a quick bow with his head.

 

“Hmph.” Midorima Shintarou simply adjusted his glasses and averted his face from the blonde’s shininess. “Let’s just get this stupid reunion over with.”

 

“Don’t call it ‘stupid’, Midorimacchi~! And it’s not a ‘reunion’, it’s a ce~le~bra~tion~!!” corrected Kise, opening further the door and moving aside so that his first two guests could come inside of his house. “Oh, my parents aren’t home today and will only get back quite late, so you can be as noisy as you want.”

 

“I don’t think you should be saying that to us, Kise-kun,” deadpanned Kuroko, stepping inside of the genkan and exchanging his outdoor shoes for the slippers that the owner of the house provided him. He picked up once again the paper bag he was carrying and gave it to Kise. “Here are some things for the ‘celebration’.”

 

“Thanks, Kurokocchi<3 Let’s see what it is~” Kise opened the paper bag and peeked inside. “Geh! You brought vanilla milkshakes?”

 

“Of course I did. You know I can’t go without drinking at least four cups of vanilla milkshake a day,” answered Kuroko, a completely serious look on his face. “But don’t worry, I already drank two today, so I can share some of what’s there. Please keep them in the refrigerator until everyone arrives.”

 

“Yes, yes,” acknowledged the blonde, releasing a soft sigh as he observed the bluenette coming further inside of his house. He started walking to the kitchen, but suddenly another paper bag came in his direction and stopped him from moving forward.

 

“Here,” said Midorima while once again adjusting his glasses, holding with his hand said paper bag. “It would be rude of me if I didn’t bring something.”

 

“I see you’re still the same tsundere as always, Midorimacchi,” pointed out Kise while laughing softly. “But thanks a lot! What was it that you brought?”

 

“Everybody’s lucky items from Oha Asa,” answered the green-haired male, a proud look displayed on the entirety of his body, from head to toes. “Yours is that small scale model of an ancient phone, by the way.”

 

“A-Ah… I’ll take them upstairs after I put the milkshakes in the fridge,” awkwardly acknowledged the blonde, closing the bag once again. He really had no idea why would Midorima bring something like that to a gathering, but asking him to explain would probably be troublesome so he just let it be.

 

After putting all seven vanilla milkshakes inside of the refrigerator (where he had to adjust a countless number of ingredients already stored there so that they could all fit inside), Kise led his two former teammates up to his bedroom.

 

“Tadah~! It’s all cleaned up!” pointed out the blonde while he opened the door, his arms stretched in its direction to make it seem like he had gone out of his way to do it (which was actually true).

 

“You only cleaned your room because you were afraid that Aomine-kun would start teasing you again after he snooped around in your stuff, didn’t you?” deadpanned Kuroko, looking intently to the taller male.

 

“Ugh… N-No, I just wanted my r-room to be in tip-top shape,” stuttered the taller male, averting the judging blank look of the bluenette.

 

“Then it doesn’t have anything to do with the fact that last time that Aomine came to your house, he continuously bugged you about a certain ‘funny-looking underpants’ during basketball practice?” asked Midorima, raising slightly an eyebrow with a slight smirk surfacing in his features.

 

“Don’t remind me of that!!! Aominecchi made my life hellish during weeks because of that!” yelped Kise in a panic, covering his face with his hands. “So what if I don’t want to be a laughingstock for the rest of my life? I have that right, don’t I?”

 

“So you are admitting that you have something in your room that could be used against you,” added Kuroko, a small smirk also tugging his lips upwards.

 

“Y-Y… You’re all so mean to me~!” cried out the blonde. He really had to wonder if in his past life he had committed a treacherous deed or something along those lines for his karma to be so negative in his current one. Or maybe it was just his terrible bad luck having met his teammates. _But well, so many things would be different right now if I hadn’t joined Teikou’s basketball club that I don’t feel regretful at all about it~_

 

“Okay, I’m sorry, Kise-kun. I won’t tell Aomine-kun that you’re hiding something cringe-worthy in your room,” assured the bluenette, the smirk turning into a soft smile. “Midorima-kun also won’t say anything. Right, Midorima-kun?”

 

“Hmph! If it stops Aomine from making a total ruckus, then of course I won’t,” agreed the taller male.

 

“Kurokocchi, you’re the best!!” cheered Kise, a bright smile almost covering his whole face. “I don’t know what I would do witho—“

 

Suddenly, the doorbell sounded one more time. A second later, it buzzed again. The way the person was abusing of the electronic device, all of them exchanged glances.

 

“Speak of the devil…” mumbled Midorima, rolling slightly his eyes while motioning inside of the blonde’s bedroom and sitting down on one of the pillows put down on the floor.

 

“I’ll go answer the door~” happily announced the blonde, starting to walk back to the first floor. “Kurokocchi, just get inside of the room already and make yourself at home!”

 

Kuroko observed the taller male cheerfully go downstairs and then turned around to walk inside of the other male’s bedroom, motioning to one of the pillows and also sitting down on it as the green haired male had.

 

After a few seconds of complete silence, the ground started to tremble slightly as two sets of heavy footsteps started to climb the stairs in a furious manner. When the bluenette and green haired male turned their faces in the door’s direction, they saw Aomine Daiki running inside of the room through it.

 

“No way in hell I will do what you’re telling me, Kise! I’ll find your weakness once again and use it against you for the rest of your life!” yelled Aomine in a matter-of-factly tone, looking to outside of the room in the stairs' direction.

 

“Nooooo! Kurokocchi, please stop Aominecchi! Stop him before I have to emigrate to another planet!” The voice was coming from the corridor and it was sounding gradually closer each heavy footstep made.

 

“Tetsu can’t stop me if he’s not here, Kise!” chanted the tanned male while sticking his tongue out to the blonde.

 

“Aomine-kun, please stop teasing Kise-kun,” deadpanned Kuroko, appearing suddenly (or at least so it seemed to the taller male) beside the smirking basketball player.

 

“Woah, Tetsu! You’re here already!” yelped Aomine, his body jumping slightly at the scare of the magical appearance of the bluenette. “I noticed Midorima was already here, but I didn’t notice you at all. Like usual, I guess.”

 

Seeing the happy grin in the tanned male’s face, Kuroko softly smiled at him too. He walked right back to the inside of the bedroom and sat once again in the pillow. “Aomine-kun, please behave at least today. I’m sure you will have another opportunity to find out Kise-kun’s weakness throughout the next few years.”

 

“Ehhh… Isn’t this supposed to be a gathering to have fun?” complained Aomine, departing from the door to move over to the two sitting males at the same time the blonde appeared at the door while carrying in his arms two plastic bags full of potato chips and other savoury snacks.

 

“A-Aominecchi, n-not fair!” complained Kise, panting tremendously as he entered inside of the bedroom. “You can’t just suddenly throw the potato chips in the air and simply dart to my room like that!!”

 

“It’s first come, first serve, Kise!” laughed Aomine, sitting down in a pillow next to the bluenette.

 

“Aomine-kun, I don’t think that idiom is usually used that way,” deadpanned Kuroko, motioning his elbow up to the low table beside him as he observed the start of the incoming ‘battle’ that this day would become for the looks of it.

 

“Geez~ Midorimacchi, if Aominecchi starts to behave oddly, pin him down to the floor! You’re taller than him so I’m sure you can do it!” requested Kise as he put down the bags with the snacks on the floor near the other males.

 

“You do it. I don’t want to horse around with him. It would be a waste of my energy,” complained Midorima, adjusting his glasses. Those were one of the reasons, but the major problem of doing such was the fact that today Virgo had a higher ranking in Oha Asa’s fortune telling than Cancer. He hadn’t tempted fate for years now, and it wasn’t going to be this day and this ‘celebration’ that would change his mind in that regard – lucky item with him or not.

 

“Argh, why isn’t anybody ever on my side?” started whining the blonde, a sulking expression on his face. He suddenly turned his attention on the small bluenette and stared at him with beckoning golden eyes. “Kurokocchi… You’ll help me… right?”

 

“I’ll do my best, Kise-kun,” assured Kuroko the taller male. Kise’s face was readily filled with happiness and he was starting to lung forward in his direction when the bluenette opened his mouth once again. “Ah, but if it gets too troublesome, I’m out.”

 

“Ugh… I have absolutely no one on my side… I’m just a pitiful creature who has been thrown aside by his supposed companions…” started mumbling Kise, turning around to go to one of the corners of his room. Once he reached the wall, he crouched down and continued to softly mumble and complain to himself as an ominous dark aura erupted all around him. “Even my own current teammates treat me badly… And I haven’t seen Kasamatsu-senpai for a week now… Ahhh… My life is over… I feel like my life force is being sucked out of me… Ahhh…”

 

“Pffft! Ahahahahaha!” started laughing Aomine, almost falling backwards with the trembling of his body.

 

“Aomine-kun, you shouldn’t laugh like that. He’ll start feeling even more down,” softly admonished Kuroko. He turned his face to the blonde and started directing some comforting words to him. “Kise-kun, don’t worry. You just have to put Murasakibara-kun on your side. And once Akashi-kun arrives, I don’t think Aomine-kun will continue to pester you.”

 

“Really?” Sniffing a little bit, Kise looked over his shoulder to the smaller male, tears in the corner of his eyes.

 

“Yes, really,” confirmed the bluenette, nodding his head softly in acknowledgement. “I’m sure they are almost here. Please work hard to convince them to join your side. They are powerful allies to have, after all.”

 

“Mhm, I’ll do my bes—“ His energy once again restored, Kise also nodded in agreement until the doorbell once again sounded. “Oh, one of them arrived! Or maybe both! I’ll go open the door!”

 

In a single motion, Kise got up once again and ran out of the room, his footsteps while going to the first floor reverberating through the floor once again. His laughing once again under control, Aomine looked over at Kuroko while wiping the tears that had formed in the corner of his eyes.

 

“You sure have gotten used to deal with Kise, Tetsu. That’s ‘Kurokocchiiii~’ for you,” teased the tanned male, a smirk erupting on his face. He motioned one of his feet to the floor and started to propel his body upwards, the smirk turning a few shades darker and evil. “Now then~ Let’s find out what he’s got hidden in here~”

 

When Aomine was starting to move his body forward to the closest location to him that could be used to hide something, a hand came gripping on his pants. When he looked down, he saw the bluenette holding into him.

 

“Aomine-kun, please leave him alone for today. If he gets all depressed like that one more time, I don’t know if I’ll be able to put him back in a good mood again,” pleaded Kuroko, looking intently to the taller male.

 

“…” Aomine softly rolled his eyes and dropped his body down to the pillow once again, crossing his arms over his chest in a sulking motion. “Fine! I won’t go search around his room. But just for today! If I get another chance of coming to his house, I will find his weakness once again and tease the shit out of him for the rest of his life.”

 

“Thank you, Aomine-kun,” softly smiled Kuroko. After a few seconds of silence, they started to once again hear people going up the stairs. It sounded like there were more than two people, so Murasakibara Atsushi and Akashi Seijuurou must have arrived at the same time. They did come from the same train station, since they had to travel from Akita and Kyoto, respectively, so it wasn’t all that surprising to see them coming together to Kise’s house.

 

“But he promised me seven different flavours! And in the end, all I got were six…” The complaining voice of the purple haired giant sounded suddenly from the hallway.

 

“I already apologized, Murasakibara. The store was out of the strawberry shortcake with chocolate sauce flavoured Neru Neru Nerune.” Next followed the apologetic voice of the redhead.

 

 _So Akashi-kun used Neru Neru Nerune this time to bait Murasakibara-kun,_ chuckled inwardly Kuroko as the voices were steadily growing closer to the bedroom’s door.

 

“I’ll get it for you! I’ll totally get you a whole box of that flavour if you prevent Aominecchi from trashing my room in search of the phot— Ah, in search for something to use against me!” begged Kise’s voice. Soon he came into view from the inside of the room, walking backwards with his hands clasped together as he looked over to Murasakibara with puppy eyes.

 

“Really? But I have to return to Akita when the weekend ends. Can you get them for me before that happens?” asked the purple haired male suspiciously, also coming into view, carrying even more bags in his hands than those that Aomine had brought earlier.

 

“You’re sleeping over in my house. I’ll take you to a store where my modelling connects work on and I’ll buy you as many Neru Neru Nerune that you want,” insisted Kise, stepping inside of the bedroom once again.

 

“Kise, I think you’re signing a deal with the devil. Murasakibara will show no qualms in using you as his wallet,” warned Akashi, finally coming into view by stepping inside of the bedroom, also carrying a plastic bag with him. “Hello, Kuroko, Midorima, Aomine.”

 

“Good afternoon, Akashi-kun, Murasakibara-kun,” greeted in returned Kuroko.

 

“Hello,” also greeted Midorima, adjusting his glasses.

 

“Yo, Akashi, Murasakibara. You sure have brought a lot of things to the gathering!” greeted Aomine, eyeing the bulging bags in the purple haired male’s hands. He got up and went over in their directions, hitting Kise in the head on their way there.

 

“Ouch! What was that for!?” complained the blonde, rubbing his head on the place he was hit by the tanned male’s fist with his hand.

 

“Are you an idiot? Why are you making that kind of stupid deal with Murasakibara to convince him to ‘side with you’?” asked Aomine, peering to inside of one of the bag and taking from it a package of pockies. “Who guarantees you that I don’t have a hidden card up on my sleeve to change things around?”

 

“Wha—!? No way!” gasped Kise, his face turning once again to a panicky expression.

 

“Of course there’s no way, Kise-kun. Aomine-kun is just teasing you,” pointed out Kuroko, rolling slightly his eyes. “He already promised me that he won’t do anything like searching your room for whatever photos you’re hiding.”

 

“You’re the best, Kurok— Wait, you said ‘photos’? How did you know!?” The relaxed face of the blonde once again turned into panic and his eyes danced around the room in search of his secrets photos if they had come out of their hiding place for whatever reason.

 

“Kise, you were the one who said that it was photos that Aomine would search for,” explained Akashi, chuckling softly at Kuroko’s teasing and the amusing reaction that it brought out of the blonde.

 

“Eh~ So it’s photos this time, huh~” started the tanned male, putting a stick of pocky in his mouth and quickly biting into it. “What are they about? Peeping shots of your crush?”

 

“Ugh… T-T-T-They are only photos of my modelling work that came out funny…” lied Kise, averting the scrutinizing look from the other five males.

 

“Kise, that’s considered a crime,” softly admonished Midorima, shaking his head in disapproval.

 

“Uwah, I’m starting to get scared of spending the weekend in Kise-chin’s house…” mumbled Murasakibara while fully entering inside of the bedroom and setting the horde of bags near the ones already placed in the floor near the blonde’s wardrobe, feeling slightly crept out by the blonde’s stalking behaviour.

 

“Kise-kun… I’m disappointed in you…” confessed Kuroko, an expression full of pity in his face as he looked over to the taller blonde.

 

“To think I was the captain of such a mentally unstable person…” added Akashi, also shaking his head in disapproval as he put down the plastic bag and went over to the pillows in the floor to sit down.

 

“Y-Y-Y-You’re mistaken!!!!!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

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	2. Wishes Granted Through Misfortune

After spending the last fifteen minutes consoling the broken-hearted blonde, who had holed himself underneath the blankets of his own bed, Kuroko finally managed to soothe down Kise and returned with him to the low table where different types of snacks and candies had been spread. Around the table were the other four basketball players, Aomine displaying a sulking expression on his face after having been scolded by Akashi for continuing to tease Kise even after he went into hiding. Throughout that whole exchange, Midorima simply cleaned his glasses and Murasakibara started munching on some maiubo.

 

“Thank you for your patience. Kise-kun is back on form,” announced Kuroko, sitting down once again on his pillow.

 

“I’m sorry for the trouble…” apologized Kise, still avoiding direct eye contact with all the onlookers. “B-But the photos really aren’t like that! T-They are just… um… memories for the future? Please don’t tell anyone about them! Especially my teammates in Kaijou!”

 

Seeing the blonde suddenly bow down to them in an extremely formal stance, all of them exchanged glances and then looked right back to Kise.

 

“What photos? I don’t remember ever talking about anything like that,” started Aomine, averting his gaze from the smaller blonde while picking on his ear. “Let’s just forget this whole thing and start the gathering. I’ve received a text from Satsuki saying that she can’t come because she got unexpectedly busy. Don’t ask me about what, though.”

 

“Ehh~ Sa-chin won’t come?” softly complained Murasakibara, crunching the plastic wrap of the savoury snack he ate in his big hand. “And here I was waiting to see what snacks she would bring…”

 

“Knowing Momoi, she should probably bring something she made herself,” pointed out Midorima, adjusting his glasses. All of them felt a sudden shudder creep up their spines at such a thought.

 

“Well, seeing as we are all here now, we should start this gathering,” announced Akashi. He looked over to the blonde, who was still standing while looking at them with a sort of lost expression on his face, and softly smiled at him. “Kise, sit down already too. Now it’s time for the ‘celebration’ to really start, isn’t it?”

 

“Ah… Yes~!” Smiling brightly, Kise almost jumped while departing from near the bed and sat down next to Midorima, where the last free pillow was located. He picked the plastic cup put in front of him and raised it in the air. “Okay! Let’s start the celebration! Cheers for all of us successfully having advanced to our second year of high school~!!”

 

“I never had any doubts that I wouldn’t succeed to do such an easy thing,” mumbled Midorima under his breath as he motioned his hand forward to grab his cup.

 

“Don’t sweat the details, Midorima. Let’s just go along with it,” added Akashi, a plastic cup already in his hand. He turned his face around and looked over to Kuroko, who was sitting next to him. “I went downstairs and grabbed a vanilla milkshake for you.”

 

“Ah, thank you, Akashi-kun.” The bluenette also lunged one of his hands forward and picked up the plastic cup from Maji Burger that housed his favourite drink. He probably wouldn’t be able to drink anything else, seeing as all the other drinks displayed there were carbonated drinks. It seemed it was a good thing that he decided to bring vanilla milkshakes, after all.

 

All the basketball players raised their respective drinks and bumped their cups together at the same time, yelling “Cheers!” in unison. After that, they all started animatedly talking with each other.

 

“Murasakibara,” started all of a sudden Midorima, eyeing the purple haired giant. He lunged forward his arm to the plastic bag he had brought and rumbled inside of it with his hand. “This is your lucky item of the day. It seems like it’s quite your type of thing, so I’ll be giving it to you already.”

 

“Ehh? What is it, Mido-chin?” asked Murasakibara, pulling his eyes away from the bowl filled to the brim with potato chips. When he saw the green haired male take a package of a limited edition of pocky, Giant Rainbow Pocky, his mouth started watering in delight. “Thanks, Mido-chin!”

 

“Hmph! I only brought it because it was your lucky item. Nothing more,” added Midorima, averting the thankful gaze of the taller male while adjusting his glasses.

 

“Ahahaha! After all, it was Midorima that gained Murasakibara’s support!” laughed Aomine, throwing a sideways glance to the blonde. Seeing the sudden pouting expression on the other male’s face due to his words, he cleared his throat and slapped his hand on his back. “Cheer up already, Kise! The world’s not gonna end just because we know you’re hiding some sort of nasty photos with ya.”

 

“Ugh… You say that because it’s not you this is all about…” grumbled Kise, playing awkwardly with his fingers. “I’m a model. I have a reputation to maintain! If someone finds out I have such a thing in my room… My career would be over instantly!”

 

“Don’t worry, don’t worry! We won’t tell anyone,” insisted the tanned male, grinning happily. “And even if I wanted to tell anyone, Tetsu wouldn’t let me! Right, Tetsu? Oh, he’s not here.”

 

Aomine looked around the blonde’s bedroom and saw no signs of the small bluenette. Though, well, he was already used to that happening since it was a recurrent event from their very first meeting back in middle school.

 

“Kuroko went downstairs with Akashi. Apparently, Akashi also wants to try one of the vanilla milkshakes and Kuroko used that chance to go grab another for himself,” explained Midorima, sipping on his own drink.

 

“Woah, that was fast! Kurokocchi already drank all of that?” exclaimed Kise completely surprised, looking at the empty cup laid on top of the table. “I really have to wonder how he’s able to binge-drink vanilla milkshakes all the time… Maybe I should go get one for me too~”

 

Aomine quickly grabbed the blonde’s arm the moment he jumped up on his feet, stopping him from following after the two smaller males. “Are you sure you want to do that, Kise?”

 

“Eh? W-Why are you asking that?” hesitantly questioned Kise, looking down to the tanned male. When he saw the dark glint on his eyes and the evil smirk tugging his lips upwards, he understood very well what he was trying to get at. “Ah, thinking better about it, I don’t need a vanilla milkshake right now. Yup, this drink is more than fine! Actually, I don’t think I need to exit my bedroom at all until the celebration is over. Yes, I’ll just continue here, in _my bedroom_ , all the time.”

 

Satisfied that Kise had believed in his threat and motioned back down once again, Aomine looked over to the door that connected the bedroom to the hallway. After the last gathering they had, which occurred in Kuroko’s birthday, the bluenette and redhead had started to grow steadily closer once again. He didn’t really know how close, but he knew that they usually talked with each other on the phone every week and that, every so often, Akashi invited Kuroko to go spend a day or two in Kyoto, sometimes coming he himself to Tokyo to meet with him.

 

 _I really wonder what those two do when they meet or what they talk about in their phone calls,_ thought the tanned male in the back of his mind, a slight feeling of amusement igniting inside of him at that particular situation.

 

They all continued to talk with each other, Midorima complaining about how Murasakibara was making a mess out of the snacks he was eating and Kise throwing worried glances every once in a while to his desk while chatting with Aomine. Some minutes later, the tanned male started to hear soft footsteps climbing up the stairs and decided to listen to what the two smaller males were talking about.

 

“His initial works were very good, but I have to agree with you, Kuroko. Murakami Haruki was at his best when he wrote ‘1Q84’,” said the voice of the redhead.

 

“The mystery plot of that dystopian world got me stuck to it in the very first pages. It was an extremely enjoyable journey, reading those three volumes,” added the bluenette, a small glint of enthusiasm in his voice. “It really made me wonder if such things are possible. Like entering inside of a parallel word or other supernatural things happening without any explanation.”

 

“The world is still a big unknown, so who knows if such things don’t usually happen around us and we just pass by them without noticing anything at all?” pointed out the redhead, coming into view to those inside of the bedroom. He was holding in his hand a milkshake cup from Maji Burger and came to a halt on the door, letting the smaller male enter before him. “What did you thought of his latest novel?”

 

“You mean ‘Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage’?” asked Kuroko, looking to the taller male while sitting down once again in his pillow. “I still haven’t found a chance to read it. Have you, Akashi-kun?”

 

“Yes, I have. Just like his other works, extremely entertaining and fascinating,” acknowledged Akashi, sitting next to the bluenette. “Somehow, the book made me think about the time we spent in Teikou Middle School.”

 

“In Teikou? Why?” asked Kuroko, tilting slightly his head as he put the straw of the milkshake in his mouth and started slurping on the cold drink.

 

“Well, the character’s names are similar to ours. There’s red (Aka), blue (Ao), white (Shiro), green (Midori) and even black (Kuro),” explained Akashi, a soft smile surfacing in his features as he intently observed Kuroko drinking his milkshake.

 

“That’s surprising,” commented the bluenette, his interest readily piqued at that information. “Now I really want to read the book. I guess I will stop by the bookstore on my way home today or go there tomorrow when I go out to meet with Kagami-kun.”

 

“If you’d like, I can borrow you mine. But it’s in Kyoto, so you’ll have to wait until we meet next time,” volunteered Akashi, also starting to drink his own milkshake, the smile on his face widening slightly at the prospect of meeting with Kuroko on a later date.

 

“That would be nice of you. Ah, but since I really want to read it now, I don’t know if I’ll be able to abstain myself from buying it,” added the bluenette, a soft smile appearing on his features as he looked over to the taller male.

 

 _Books… Of course it would be books…,_ mumbled Aomine in his head, rolling his eyes slightly as he continued to ignore the talking of the blonde (something about the farewell party that the basketball club from Kaijou did to the third years) and focused his gaze in a covert manner to the talking redhead and bluenette. They almost seemed to be on their own world, completely ignoring the other former teammates present in the room.

 

Suddenly, Akashi moved his red eyes in his direction and, to hide the fact that he had been observing them, the tanned male simply crawled over to the plastic bags that were still filled with delicious things for them to snack on during the afternoon. When he started rumbling through their insides, Aomine noticed something and took it out of the bag.

 

“Hey, Murasakibara, this is yours, right?” asked the tanned male, holding his hand high in the air while securing in it a large plastic bag of jelly beans. “I thought you said you were sick of eating these.”

 

“Ahh… That’s why I brought them…” explained the purple haired giant, eating the potato chips from the bowl in quick succession. “I still have a lot of bags of jelly beans in Akita. You know, the ones Muro-chin received from America. That one is a limited edition, it seems, so I thought ‘why not bring it with me and make them feel sick of jelly beans too?’”

 

“Limited edition? What’s different about those from the others?” asked Kise, perking up at the prospect of eating from limited edition candies that came directly from America.

 

“I have absolutely no idea… The package is in English and I didn’t feel like asking Muro-chin to translate it for me,” answered the purple haired male, shrugging his shoulders. “But they probably also have those weird looking jelly beans inside.”

 

“’Weird looking jelly beans’?” asked suddenly Akashi, an eyebrow slightly raised at the conversation the other males were having. Both Kuroko and he were now looking over in Aomine’s direction, who was still holding the bag with the jelly beans.

 

“Yeah, they are… suspicious,” simply confirmed Murasakibara, motioning his hand up to grab his cup and finish drinking his carbonated juice.

 

“If it’s Murasakibara who is saying that, they must be really weird,” added Midorima, adjusting his glasses while looking over in the jelly beans’ bag’s direction. “He has probably already tasted all kinds of snacks and candies that are available here in Japan and some of them are considerably dubious in terms of flavours.”

 

“Oh, I know! Why don’t we all try them?” suggested Kise, his face brightening with the idea. “And if we do it all at the same time, we can see each other’s reactions to the weird looking jelly beans! It might be a fun game for us to do.”

 

“Eating something that Murasakibara-kun finds weird might be dangerous. Especially if it comes in a limited edition,” pointed out Kuroko, a little bit hesitant about his whole ‘fun game’ that the blonde was suggesting.

 

“I would usually think like that too, Tetsu, but it sure sounds interesting,” added Aomine, a smirk erupting in his face. He just had the perfect way to convince the others to play along with Kise’s idea. “If those weird looking jelly beans have a very nasty flavour, I wonder what kind of face an expressionless guy like you would make~”

 

“Eh?” interjected the bluenette, looking with a surprised face to the tanned male. He then looked around to his other former teammates, a mischievous expression in every single one of them. “Ah… I-I’m not very fond of jelly beans…”

 

“Kuroko, this is a celebration,” started Akashi, a dark glint in his eyes as the smirk on his features widened considerably. “Playing one or two games won’t hurt us, right? And it seems that we are all in agreement in regards to that. We live in a mainly democratic world, so the majority will make the decisions, in the end.”

 

“Kuroko, I’m sorry, but I’m really curious about that too,” backed up the green-haired male, a sort of evil glint in the eyes hidden behind the glasses.

 

“Yes, Kuro-chin, if one of us suffers from the weird looking jelly beans, all of us have to suffer too,” added Murasakibara, picking up an empty bowl and motioning it forward to the tanned male, so he could dump all the jelly beans in it.

 

“I wonder what kind of expression of disgust will Kurokocchi make~” wondered Kise out loud, his smirk a mixture of shininess and revenge for the teasing that the bluenette had brought forward earlier.

 

“Tetsu, give it up,” added Aomine, opening the bag and softly spilling the candies inside of the bowl. “You have no way out of this now.”

 

“I’m starting to agree with Kise-kun. You are all extremely mean,” tried to deadpan Kuroko, but the demoralized look on his face completely ruined his chances of accomplishing it.

 

“Ahahahaha! Okay, let’s see what’s in here~” laughed the tanned male while looking inside of the bowl. There was indeed one type of jelly beans that didn’t match with the others. They must apparently be the weird looking jelly beans, seeing as Murasakibara was also staring at them with slight disgust in his face. “Have you tried them before, Murasakibara?”

 

“No. Why would I?” answered the purple haired giant, lunging his hand forward to grab one of the small ‘weird looking’ jelly beans. “These little things may have a completely revolting flavour. I don’t want to ruin my like for jelly beans even more than Muro-chin already has.”

 

“So everybody in here is a ‘virgin’ to these type of jelly beans,” smirked the tanned male, motioning of his hand to the bowl so he could gather five more candies of that type for himself and the other participants of the little ‘game’. He then distributed them for the other males, doubt still painted in the bluenette’s face.

 

“Uwah~ They really do have a weird colour…” started Kise, turning the jelly bean around to observe it better. “I don’t even know what to call this colour. The format is sort of similar to the normal ones, but the colour is indeed suspicious.”

 

“I told you…” added Murasakibara, still eyeing the small candy in his hand with disgust. It wasn’t only the colour that was making his stomach turn – it was also the fact that he had already eaten 5 bags (American sized) of jelly beans in the last few months that was making him feel somewhat sick.

 

“We should hurry up and eat them,” pointed out Midorima, also observing the small candy in between his fingers. “If we stall this indefinitely, the nasty flavour that this probably has will remain longer in our mouths.”

 

“Kuroko, turn more to this way,” requested Akashi, shifting his body slightly closer to the smaller male so he could observe him better. “If you stay in that position, we won’t all be able to see your expression of disgust when you eat it.”

 

“Akashi-kun, you’re making me feel like an abomination on display in a circus,” deadpanned Kuroko in an admonishing way (but moving slightly his body like he was being told). He then looked down at his hand and raised slightly an eyebrow. “Are we really going to do this?”

 

“Yup!” exclaimed Kise and Aomine at the same time, mischievous grins in their faces.

 

“Then at the count of three, we will all put the jelly beans in our mouths,” directed Akashi, turning his body slightly more in the bluenette’s direction. “And no cheating. I will know if you did.”

 

“Y-Yes…” conceded everyone in unison, feeling the threat reverberate inside of their bodies.

 

“Okay, then. Three… Two… One… Go!”

 

When the countdown came to an end, all of them threw the jelly bean into their mouth, crunching it with their teeth. All of them remained in silence while doing so, observing the expression on everybody’s faces.

 

“Eh?” interjected Kuroko softly, continuing to chew the jelly bean as an eyebrow started to perk up. “It’s… normal?”

 

“Yes, it’s normal. I don’t know which flavour it is, but it doesn’t taste bad,” added the redhead, swallowing the candy.

 

“Well, isn’t this quite anticlimactic…” sighed Aomine, disappointment written all over his face. “And here was I thinking that I would finally get to see Tetsu make a funny face.”

 

“Let me see that bag they came in,” requested Midorima, adjusting his glasses while motioning his hand up to Aomine, who was the closest to the empty plastic package. After he took it in his hands, he started to read the information in English that was written in it. “Hm… They don’t say anything about the mysterious flavour of the weird looking jelly beans, but…”

 

“But?” repeated Kise, peering over to see what was written in the bag. English was his strongest subject but there were still a lot of words in the package that he didn’t understand.

 

“’Your deepest wish will be granted by the means of… misfortune?’” suddenly said the green haired male, a questioning look on his features as he looked over to the other males, their faces housing the same type of look that he had. “Well, that’s what’s written in here, at least.”

 

“Ugh… I have a feeling that we just ate a very troublesome thing…” grunted Murasakibara, running his hand through his long purple locks of hair. “But well, at least it didn’t taste bad. It was pretty good, in a way. But after hearing that, I don’t think I will eat any more of the weird looking ones. Actually, I won’t eat any more jelly beans for a while. Ugh…”

 

All of them laughed when they saw the purple haired giant sticking out his tongue, an expression of disgust once again flashing in his features.

 

“Well, forgetting the weird foreshadowing bad luck that the bag announced, I think it was for the best that the flavour is considerably to our tastes,” added Kuroko, a soft smile still housed in his lips.

 

“I did want to see you making a nasty expression because of the flavour, though,” confessed Akashi, a smirk appearing on his face once again as he looked sideways to the smaller male. “Maybe I should start searching for ways to make that happen.”

 

“I’m sorry, Akashi-kun, but that will be impossible,” simply answered Kuroko, picking up once again his cup with the vanilla milkshake and putting the straw on his mouth to continue drinking it.

 

“Because you have a perpetual expressionless face on at all moments, no matter what happens?” teased the redhead further.

 

“No, because I don’t want to lose,” added the smaller male, a soft smirk suddenly perking his lips upwards.

 

“Really, the same Kuroko of always,” chuckled Akashi, motioning his hand forward to also continue drinking his milkshake.

 

 _But well… that’s what makes you so interesting, Kuroko,_ added the redhead inwardly, peering sideways to the other male as he chatted with Aomine in regards of meeting up with Kagami Taiga, the bluenette’s teammate, in the next following day.

 

-.-

 

**[9 hours after the ending of the meeting – 5:30 AM]**

 

Kise was so used to wake up at the same hour every morning that his body would automatically start working once again without needing any sort of alarm clock to achieve that end. He opened one of his golden eyes and peeked to his bedroom, a lot of things still thrown to some places in random ways, even though they all cleaned up the room after the meeting was closed and everyone left for their respective houses (with the exception of Murasakibara, who was currently sleeping in a futon beside his bed, and Akashi, who was going to stay in an hotel for the night to return to Kyoto in the Shinkansen the next day).

 

Still with sleepiness installed in his body, he motioned one of his hands and ruffled his hair, two fluffy unknown bulges in the sides of his head. A question mark floating around him, the blonde once again motioned his hand up and touched one of the bulges, feeling an itching sensation because of said action. However, he didn’t feel it in his hand. It was in the fluffy thing that he touched.

 

“Huh?” Kise suddenly motioned his body up to a sitting position and lunged his other hand up to touch the other bulge. Touching and feeling up the two fluffy things apparently attached to his head, he had a weird feeling of having felt it before… but not in a human being. “Eh!?”

 

In a single jump, the blonde got out of the bed and ran to the other side of his bedroom, where a big mirror had been put. He stopped in front of it, grabbing the sides with his hands to stop the momentum of the run, and observed his body from head to toes.

 

In between his messing blonde strands of hair were two golden and furry dog ears. He felt something considerably weighty in his lower back, just on top of his rear, and hesitantly started to turn his body around, always keeping his eyes on the mirror. Attached to his back and jutting out of his pants, was a fluffy golden tail.

 

“EH!? NO WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!” yelled Kise, in a completely state of panic. He motioned his hand up to his head and started pulling at the two ears attached to the top of his head, but all he got out of it was extreme pain – it was similar to the feeling of having his fingers or arms being pulled at. Tears in the corner of his eyes due to the sudden pull, he turned around and started running to the futon. “Murasakibaracchi! Help me! There’s something wrong with me rig— Eh? Murasakibaracchi?”

 

The blonde looked to the futon spread on the floor but saw it completely empty. Was it possible that the purple haired giant had gone to the bathroom or something? He looked over to the door of his room but it was closed and he also didn’t remember hearing it being opened at all throughout the whole night.

 

“Ngh… What’s this noise all about…?” questioned a very tiny and acute voice. Kise looked back down to the futon and saw the fabric being slowly moved in the place where a small ball was placed. He observed with a flabbergasted expression as the ball moved up through the futon until a purple small thing appeared near the pillow. “Huh? Was the futon this big?”

 

“M-M-Murasakibaracchi…?” hesitantly called the blonde, peering down with his eyes completely open to a small (extremely small!) version of the purple haired male.

 

“Eh?” Murasakibara moved his tiny head upwards and looked at the blonde with sleepy eyes. “Kise-chin, you got bigger…”

 

“N-No… You’re the one who got smaller…” corrected Kise. He then pointed at his head, more precisely, to the furry ears attached to the top of his head and asked to the small version of the purple haired giant. “M-Murasakibaracchi… do you also see the dog ears in my head? And the tail in my back?”

 

“Yes. Why?” simply answered Murasakibara, rubbing slightly his eyes with his tiny hand. He suddenly stopped his movements and looked up to the blonde. “Eh?”

 

“Eh?” also interjected Kise, looking down to the doll-like size of the once gigantic male.

 

“EHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!?” yelled the two males in unison (or better yet, the small scale version of a human being and the half human, half dog male).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mafy's Info:  
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> You can show your support for my fanfictions and help me achieve my goals of self-publication for original stories in Ko-fi! [UPDATE: Found an artist, character profiles for the original stories to come out in the near future!]


	3. Discovering and Decoding

Kuroko was sleeping deeply when he started to hear something loudly ring in his bedroom. After a few seconds, the sound stopped so he just let himself stay laid down in bed and continue his restful sleep. However, not even half a second later, the ringing started again. And he recognized the sound very well.

 

With sleepy eyes, he looked over to the nightstand beside his bed and saw his cell phone vibrating and flashing, the music of his ringtone echoing through the whole room. He slowly lunged his hand in its direction and picked the device up, retracting his arm once again so he could put the phone on his ear.

 

The bluenette picked up the call and before he could even speak, a loud voice almost burst his eardrums.

 

_“Kurokocchi!!!!”_

 

Without hesitation, Kuroko pressed the end call button and dropped the phone to his bed, pushing the blankets over his head so that he could once again return to his deserved sleeping time. Ten seconds later, however… the phone started ringing yet once again.

 

“Ugh…” With his face pressed against the mattress, the bluenette groped the bed in search of the phone and, once he found its location, he once again picked up the call. Kise could be persistent as hell when it came to phone calls, so the only solution he had, if he wanted to continue to sleep, was answering the phone and quickly end the conversation.

 

 _“You’re so mean, Kurokocchi!”_ started the blonde almost immediately after the call connected. _“How could you hang up on me like that!?”_

 

“Do you know how early it is…? It’s not even 6 AM…” admonished Kuroko, his voice still moulded by sleepiness. Hearing the blonde sniffing from the other side of the call, he sighed and turned his body in the bed so he could be facing up. “What is it, Kise-kun?”

 

 _“I… I think I’m sick!!”_ suddenly yelped Kise, in a complete panic. The bluenette could understand from the tone of his voice that he had tears in the corner of his eyes and was walking around from one side to the other in frenzy.

 

“If that’s the case… I think you should go to the hospital, not call me…” deadpanned Kuroko, rubbing lightly his eye with his free hand. Just how much of an idiot could the blonde be so that the first thing he did when he was ‘sick’ was calling him and not contact his parents or go to the nearest clinic or hospital?

 

 _“That’s not it!”_ complained Kise, the panic on his voice tripled. _“When I woke up this morning, there were ears in my head and a tail in my back! And Murasakibaracchi is of the size of a soda can!”_

 

“Kise-kun… You were dreaming all that. You are a totally normal human being and Murasakibara-kun is the same size as always,” sighed Kuroko, shifting his body slightly against the blankets to cover himself better. “I’m going to hang up now, okay?”

 

 _“Wait, wait, wait!”_ suddenly yelled Kise, preventing the bluenette from pressing the end call button once again. _“It’s true…! Kurokocchi… What am I going to do!? I… I’m not human anymore…!!”_

 

“I don’t know, Kise-kun…” answered Kuroko, the phone starting to slip out of his hold on it due to the sleepiness he was once again experiencing. “Call me again when I can think properly, okay? Which means… in five hours…”

 

 _“Eh!? But—“_ started the blonde once again, but the bluenette disconnected the phone call and dropped the phone back to the bed, pulling the blankets over his head one more time so he could go back to sleep.

 

If Kise knew what was good for himself… he would only call him again once those five hours had gone by.

 

-.-

 

“Ugh…” groaned Kise, dropping his upper body on the mattress of his bed.

 

“I see that calling Kuro-chin didn’t help in anything,” pointed out the tiny voice of the also tiny purple haired male, who was busy munching on a potato chip, the size of the snack bigger than his head. “Why don’t you try calling once again? If you keep pestering him, he might give up and try to help us out.”

 

“No way! Kurokocchi is scarier than Akashicchi when angered!” yelped the blonde, feeling a shudder creep up his spine at only the thought of such.

 

“True…” acknowledged Murasakibara, lowering the potato chip to the surface of the small table where he was currently sitting on. “I’ll try calling Aka-chin to know if he can help us out.”

 

“Can you even make a phone call with your size?” asked Kise, arching slightly an eyebrow as he peered down to the small scale human being.

 

“I can’t pick the phone but I can still talk and dial the numbers, Kise-chin,” grumbled Murasakibara, glaring slightly at the taller blonde (he had never thought a day would come where he actually needed to look up to be able to talk with him). “Just give me my phone already.”

 

“Okay, okay. Don’t get mad,” acknowledged Kise, getting up from the floor and walking over to the bags of the purple haired male. He searched around the bag and took the phone from the pocket, motioning right back to near the low table. “You know… I never thought I would say this but… you look quite cute with that size.”

 

“That doesn’t make me happy in the least…” added Murasakibara, throwing one more glare to the blonde while he climbed to on top of the cell phone. He unlocked the screen with his tiny hands and started running down the contact list until he found the number he was searching for. “It’s hard to eat snacks like this, so I want to go back to my usual size the sooner I can.”

 

 _That’s what’s bothering you?,_ thought Kise in the back of his mind, rolling slightly his eyes as he observed the strain expressed in Murasakibara’s face so he could make the call to the redhead.

 

“Okay, done!” announced the purple haired male while panting a little bit. The phone started to ring lightly and when the call connected, Murasakibara pressed the speakerphone mode button. “Aka-chin! Kise-chin and I have a huge problem right now!”

 

 _“That’s all Greek to me,”_ answered Akashi’s sleepy voice after some brief seconds went by.

 

“Eh? But I’m speaking Japanese right now…” pointed out the purple haired male, tilting slightly his head. He looked up to Kise and saw him shrugging his shoulders, making it seem that he also didn’t understand what the redhead wanted to get at by that. “Did we wake you up, Aka-chin?”

 

 _“You are sitting on the fence, Murasakibara,”_ added the redhead, releasing a soft sigh. _“It takes two to tango so let the cat out of the bag.”_

 

“…Eh?” The purple haired male tilted his head while looking to the screen of the phone and then looked once again to the blonde, a completely lost look on his face.

 

“Akashicchi… are you feeling okay?” hesitantly asked Kise, an eyebrow slightly perked up. “Did you hit your head or something? Because… you’re not making any sense with the things you’re saying.”

 

 _“Kise, make the long story short. Now!”_ ordered the redhead in a quite threateningly way.

 

Both Kise and Murasakibara shuddered at the tone of the other male’s voice. It appeared that they had waked Akashi up, and he wasn’t known to have a lot of patience if someone did such… especially if it wasn’t even 6 AM.

 

“Ah… Okay, the problem is the following,” started explaining Kise, adjusting his position to a more formal sitting stance, almost as if the redhead was right in front of him. “When I woke up, I discovered that I had grown dog ears and a tail. When I went searching for help from Murasakibaracchi, he was of the size of a soda can.”

 

 _“…Huh?”_ interjected Akashi, completely lost on what the blonde was trying to explain. _“I think you’re the one who isn’t playing with a full deck at the moment.”_

 

“Shut up!” complained Kise in a panic. He slammed his hands on the table and continued wailing at the male on the other side of the call. “We are completely desperate right now and you keep on throwing us with idiom after idiom! I don’t even know the meaning of half of them! Are you mocking us!?”

 

 _“I’m not someone who makes question of adding insult to injury and you know it very well,”_ pointed out Akashi, sighing once again.

 

“You _are_ mocking us!” yelped Kise one more time. “This is not the time to be jokin— …Wait… Akashicchi can’t make jokes…”

 

Murasakibara and Kise exchanged glances and then looked right back to the phone, shock painting their features as they screamed in unison. “EHHHH!?”

 

“Oh my god, the same thing that is happening to us is happening to Akashicchi!?” started the blonde, the panic he was feeling before starting to show up once again. “What the hell is going on!? D-Did aliens start invading the Earth and we are their first victims!? Holy shit, will I have to live the rest of my life with dog ears and a freaking tail on my ass!? What am I supposed to do now!?”

 

 _“Kise… Pull yourself together,”_ sighed Akashi, the soft noise of blankets being moved on the background. _“We’ll have to play it by ear, for now. We’re most likely all on the same page so let’s chew the fat with everyone present.”_

 

“Ah… Umm… What?” hesitantly asked Kise, a lost expression once again appearing on his features. “Ah, wait! I’ll go search on the Internet the meaning of those idioms! Wait just a sec!”

 

“Aka-chin probably wants to say that all of us must be experiencing something like this right now and we should all meet up to solve it,” explained Murasakibara, looking up to the blonde and then down to the phone under him once again. “Right, Aka-chin?”

 

 _“Murasakibara hit the nail in the head,”_ acknowledged Akashi, the light sound of footsteps on the background. _“I’m not very on the ball with all this but we probably have a whale of a problem on our hands.”_

 

“Right…” hesitantly answered Kise, even though he couldn’t understand anything that the redhead had said. “I’ll try talking with all the others and arrange a meeting place that is safe enough for me to go without receiving weird look due to my… current look… Though it will probably be only after 10 AM since Kurokocchi would kill me if I called him again before that time.”

 

 _“Okay,”_ acknowledged Akashi. Murasakibara was about to press the end call button when the redhead started speaking once again. _“How is Ku— Well, a picture paints a thousand words... Goodbye.”_

 

The call was disconnected readily and both Kise and Murasakibara kept staring to the phone for brief seconds.

 

“Well, that was weird…” mumbled the blonde, scratching lightly his head, which was slightly tilted. “Anyway! Let’s call all the others. You call Midorimacchi and I’ll call Aominecchi. Calling Momocchi will probably be a good idea too.”

 

“Okay…” leisurely acknowledged the purple haired male, starting to press the buttons of his phone. He suddenly halted, however, and looked over to the other male with a surprised expression. Murasakibara readily jumped off on top of the phone and walked over to the other side of the table.

 

“Ah… Murasakibaracchi? What are you doing?” hesitantly asked Kise while he observed the tiny male walk around the table while peering at every corner of the room.

 

“I’m searching for the plastic bag,” explained Murasakibara, still looking around the room that seemed gigantic at the moment to his petite eyes.

 

“Plastic bag?” repeated the blonde, an eyebrow slightly arched. “Now is not the time to eat more snac— Oh shit, the weird looking jelly beans! I-I think I put the bag over there!”

 

Kise got up from the floor in a flash and went over to the plastic bags that had the used plastic cups and other things that were supposed to be thrown away. He started searching inside of them, rumbling all the things there.

 

“So dogs really search around the garbage…” snorted the purple haired male, grabbing once again the potato chip he had started before.

 

“Now it’s not the moment to tease me again…!” complained the blonde, still skirting with his hands on the plastic bag. After a few seconds, he found what he had been looking for. “Here it is! Damn it…! I can’t understand half of the things it says…”

 

“I would say to let Aka-chin translate all of it, but I think he’s out of commission at the moment,” pointed out Murasakibara as the other male returned to near the table and sat down in front of him. “The only solution we have is asking someone how understands English like a native. Like Muro-chin.”

 

“Himuro-kun is in Akita. How do you expect him to translate this right now?” added the blonde, putting the plastic bag on top of the table. “We need someone who’s closer… Oh! I know! Kagamicchi! He was in America before so he’s got to know English very well! And Kagamicchi and Kurokocchi were supposed to meet each other today. That’s killing two birds with one stone! Ugh… Now I sound like Akashicchi…”

 

“Then let’s hurry up and phone all of them. Though I think they will complain at the fact that we are calling them about such a hard to believe thing at five in the morning…” mumbled Murasakibara, putting down the heavy potato chip on the table and climbing to on top of his cell phone once again. “I sure wouldn’t believe it if someone suddenly called me at this hour and said that Aka-chin is speaking in an even weirder way or that you had grown dog ears and tail. No, actually I could believe the last one.”

 

“Hey! Why am I always the victim every single time!?” complained Kise, throwing a glare to the purple haired male.

 

“Because you’re a masochist who enjoys being beaten up by his crush and secretly asks others to take photos of the moments where that happens…” simply answered Murasakibara, pressing the button to connect another call. “Now shut up and let me speak with Mido-chin.”

 

“Ah… Uh… I…” started Kise, completely at a loss of what to say. Apparently, the purple haired male had found his secret collection of secretly taken photos of Kasamatsu Yukio, his senior that had graduated from high school this year. “Ugh… Please ask Midorimacchi if there’s a way to safely erase someone’s memories…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mafy's Info:  
> [Twitter](https://twitter.com/Mafy_mod)  
> [Tumblr](http://mafymod.tumblr.com/)  
> [Ko-fi](https://ko-fi.com/I2I49KM4)  
> You can show your support for my fanfictions and help me achieve my goals of self-publication for original stories in Ko-fi! [UPDATE: Found an artist, character profiles for the original stories to come out in the near future!]


	4. Boy? Girl? Both?

Momoi Satsuki was hurriedly walking in the housing suburbs of Tokyo, trying to not gather the attention of the few people on the street at 7:30 AM. She had received the most unbelievable phonecall from Kise one hour ago: a messed up prank where he had suddenly woken up with dog ears and tail, Murasakibara had become of the size of a soda can and Akashi could only speak through idioms, all because they had eaten some “weird looking jelly beans”.

 

Of course, she didn’t believe any of that… until she received a photo sent by the blonde that showed her their current appearance. Still a little bit reticent, she decided to call Akashi… and she almost fell down the stair she was at the time climbing down because of the way the redhead was truly talking.

 

Since it was currently extremely hard to maintain a (sane) conversation with Akashi, she decided to call Kise once again to know more details about the others. He had told her that he only had not been able to talk with Aomine yet and when she noticed, she was already running outside of her house.

 

And so, after almost 20 minutes of walking (more like running), she reached Aomine’s house and entered inside of the small front yard to press the doorbell. His parents should be at home too, since it was a weekend, so even if Aomine was still sleeping someone would open the door for her to come inside.

 

She rang the doorbell and waited. And waited. Getting a little bit impatient, Momoi rang one more time and waited. That was weird. Why wasn’t anyone answering the door? An extremely bad feeling creeping up inside of her, she decided to call the tanned male once again. When the pink haired girl put the phone on her ear and waited for the call to connect, strangely she could hear a cell phone ringing from right behind the door.

 

 _“Yes?”_ asked the voice of the tanned male from both on the other side of the call and the other side of the door.

 

“Dai-chan, it’s me! Please open the door right now! I need to tell you something really important right now!” started explaining Momoi right away, getting a little bit more frustrated.

 

“Oh, Sat-chan<3 You’re here to visit me~?” said Aomine, opening the door almost immediately. Somehow… Momoi thought there was something different about the tanned male, but she couldn’t really tell what it was.

 

“Yes! There’s a really big problem going around right now!” continued the pink haired girl stepping inside of the entrance of the tanned male’s house. “Are you feeling anything weird rig— Ah… Dai-chan? What are you doing?”

 

“Hmm?” hummed Aomine, looking at a small mirror on his hand while taking a small pink lipstick out of his pants’ pocket. “I’m fixing my make-up, of course. A girl has always to be on their best appearance when they have visits, right, Sat-chan?”

 

“’S-Sat-chan’…?” hesitantly repeated Momoi, arching an eyebrow as she processed the information on her extremely advanced brain. “…Eh? W-What did you just say? A… A girl has to be on her best? W-Who has to be on her best?”

 

“What are you talking about, Sat-chan?” asked Aomine, a scandalized look on his face as he looked away from the mirror to stare at the pink haired girl. “I’m talking about me, of course! You’re so silly, Sat-chan~”

 

“Eh…?”

 

“Now that you’re here, help me choose my clothes!” suddenly announced Aomine, grabbing the pink haired girl’s arm and dragging her to the second floor. “Today I’ll be meeting up with Kagami-chan and Tetsu-chan, so I want to be really cute and sparkly<3 But for some reason, I just don’t know what type of clothes I should take? You’re my BFF so you have to help me, okay~?”

 

“Ah… O-Okay…” hesitantly acknowledged Momoi, her brain starting to enter into overload for the first time in a long, long time.

 

What was happening right now? It appeared that Aomine was acting like a teenage girl – no, more like, he was _thinking_ like a teenage girl. And it wasn’t an ordinary girl, it was a spoiled, happy-go-lucky and sparkly girl who would obviously start to throw tantrums if things didn’t go her away.

 

“D-Dai-chan, where are your parents?” asked Momoi, putting on a forced smile on her face as she entered inside of Aomine’s bedroom. Inside of the room was a complete mess of clothes spread on the bed, on the floor, on the drawers, _everywhere_. It appeared that the tanned male really had been trying to decide what to dress.

 

“Mommy and daddy left early today to go to… Hmm? Where was it again?” started thinking Aomine, tilting his head sideways in a cute thinking pose, one that someone would never imagine seeing on a 192 cm muscled male. He quickly shrugged his shoulders and looked right back to his bed, picking up a shirt and observing it intently. “It doesn’t matter~ Let’s just choose my clothes quickly, okay? Afterwards, I need to put on a new make-up set and maybe find a cute necklace to go with my clothes.”

 

“U-Um… Yes, that sounds wonderful, Dai-chan…” acknowledged the pink haired girl while taking slow steps backwards. She slowly took her phone out of her purse and pointed at it. “D-Dai-chan, I need to call Tetsu-kun really quickly, okay? Do you mind?”

 

“Oh, Tetsu-chan? Tell him I said hi and sent him kisses and bear hugs<3” happily said Aomine, continuing to happily search around his clothes, humming a song while moving his body around to its rhythm.

 

“Y-Yes, I-I will…” Nodding hesitantly, Momoi quickly turned around on her heels and exited the room back to the hallway, closing the door behind herself.

 

-.-

 

Kuroko was already on the deepest stage of his second sleep when he was suddenly awakened by once again the ring of his cell phone. Trying to calm down his thundering heart due to the scare he caught by the unexpected loud ring, he grunted and stuffed his head beneath the pillow.

 

But the ringing persisted. When he finally thought that whoever it was that called had given up, the ringing started once again. There was only one person who could be this persistent. And he had even warned the blonde to not call him until after 10 AM.

 

Slowly, the bluenette took his arm from out of the bundle of blankets and groped the mattress of the bed, searching of his phone while still with his head hidden away. When he found the electronic device, he pressed the button and put it underneath the pillow, so he could speak.

 

“Kise-kun… it’s still… too early… Please call at a later time…” mumbled Kuroko with an extremely sleepy voice.

 

 _“Tetsu-kun, it’s not Ki-chan! It’s me!”_ screamed right away the pink haired girl’s voice, panic painting her voice as it had happened with the blonde.

 

“Momoi…san?” Kuroko took the pillow from on top of his head and turned around to face the ceiling of his bedroom. He peeked at his alarm clock and saw that it was still too early for his brain to be working at 100% (well, at least on a weekend). “What’s wrong…?”

 

 _“T-This is serious, Tetsu-kun! I don’t know what I should do?”_ started Momoi, her voice in a complete frenzy and the bluenette had a feeling that she was teary-eyed right now (just like Kise had been a couple of hours ago). _“D-Dai-chan is… I think Dai-chan is dying!!”_

 

“Eh!?” In a single jump, Kuroko sat up in his bed, all sleepiness completely drained out of his whole body due to those sudden and alarming words. “What happened to Aomine-kun?”

 

 _“I know he sometimes acts completely weird, but right now he…”_ hesitantly explained the pink haired girl. She paused for a brief second, gulped down hard and took a deep breath. _“Dai-chan is addressing to himself like he’s a girl.”_

 

“Huh?” interjected the bluenette right away, completely lost on how he should interpret those words.

 

 _“Dai-chan is saying ‘watashi’ instead of ‘ore’. He’s calling me ‘Sat-chan’ and he’s currently taking all of his clothes from his wardrobe and drawers, because he’s planning on wearing perfect clothes, perfect make-up and a ‘cute necklace’ to go meet with you and Kagami-kun!”_ explained Momoi as quickly as she could so she wouldn’t feel the effect of her own words. _“Oh, and when I said I was going to call you, he told me this: ‘Oh, Tetsu-chan? Tell him I said hi and sent him kisses and bear hugs <3’”_

 

“Momoi-san, please calm down,” started Kuroko, heaving a soft sigh. “You’re starting to sound like Kise-kun did this morning. You were probably dreaming all of—“

 

 _“Oh, this is definitely not a dream, Tetsu-kun!”_ interrupted the pink haired girl, taking a deep breath once again to calm herself. _“Ki-chan, Mukkun, Midorin and even Akashi-kun are like this!”_

 

“Eh?” interjected Kuroko one more time, his head spinning at this information. Then that meant that when Kise had called him at 5 AM saying something about him having dog ears and tail and Murasakibara being tiny… Could it be that all of that was actually _true_?

 

 _“If you need proofs about it, I’ll send you the picture that Ki-chan sent me of him and Mukkun,”_ continued Momoi, her voice a little bit calmer than before. _“He told me it had something to do with the ‘weird looking jelly beans’ that you all ate during the gathering you had in his house.”_

 

“What? The jelly beans?” repeated the bluenette, arching slightly an eyebrow. He had also eaten one of the jelly beans but… He looked down on his body and then started patting his head and back, and saw nothing out of the ordinary there. He also felt no different from when he went to sleep last night.

 

 _“So how are you feeling right now, Tetsu-kun?”_ asked the pink haired girl, impatience painting slightly her voice once again. _“I see that you’re speaking normally, so did your body change in some sort of way? Did you also grow ears and a tail? Oh, that would look quite cute on you~ Ah, anyway. Do you feel weird or something unusual is going around you?”_

 

“No. I’m completely normal,” simply announced Kuroko, peering slightly around his bedroom to see if there was anything different there. “And I also don’t think there’s anything out of the ordinary going around me, at the moment. If we ignore this whole conversation, that is.”

 

 _“Eh? Then… you’re completely normal right now?”_ hesitantly asked Momoi, a sort of dissatisfied tone on her voice.

 

“Yes, I’m completely normal,” deadpanned the bluenette, giving a short nod with his head. “On that note, what exactly are Akashi-kun and Midorima-kun’s current _abnormalities_?”

 

_“Ah… Well, I don’t really know about Midorin since I haven’t talked to him directly. But Ki-chan told me that apparently he was close to dying two times already and he hasn’t gone out of his room yet. However, I talked with Akashi-kun on the phone and he can only speak using idioms.”_

 

“Idioms? That must be hard to understand for someone who isn’t used to read,” pointed out Kuroko, arching slightly an eyebrow. Most likely, the only ones who would be able to understand what the redhead wanted to say would be him, Momoi and Midorima, since the rest of them weren’t exactly the most bright of people in terms of intelligence. “And what exactly are we going to do about this? Have anyone decided on how we will solve this… ‘jelly bean curse’?”

 

 _“No, nothing at the moment,”_ added the pink haired girl. _“Ki-chan told me that we need to all meet in a café at 11 AM so we could discuss what we should do. He also said that he would contact Kagamin since he has lived in America and the package of jelly beans came from there. Meanwhile, I will also try to search around for— Ah, Dai-chan, you can’t go out to the street wearing that! It’s your mother’s dress and it wouldn’t fit you even if you shrank a little bit! Tetsu-kun, sorry but I need to go. There’s no way I will let Dai-chan go out to the street wearing a dress! See you later!”_

 

Having said that, the call was suddenly cut off, leaving Kuroko still as confused as before.

 

Apparently all of them got “cursed” by the weird looking jelly beans that they had eaten the day before – Kise was transforming into a dog, Murasakibara had shrunk to the size of a soda can, Akashi was speaking with idioms only, Aomine thought of himself as a girl and Midorima was going through some sort of thing that put him in life-threatening situations while still inside of his bedroom.

 

Then… why was it that nothing different was going on around him? He had eaten the jelly bean like all the others. Could it be that, for some reason, the “curse” didn’t affect him?

 

Or was it that he still hadn’t noticed what it was yet?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

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	5. Unveiled Rules

After talking with Momoi, Kuroko hurriedly got out of bed and dressed his outdoor clothes, searching for any bodily change while doing so. He also looked on the mirror of the bathroom and went to greet his family, and everything went about in the same usual and normal way that it went on all weekends.

 

Everything was absolutely normal and he hadn’t noticed anything weird going around. He was even starting to think if all of this wasn’t only a prank being played on him, but the affliction in the pink haired girl when she called him at an unusual hour seemed way too realistic to be a lie.

 

So, even though it was still quite early to go to the meeting spot, a small café that was owned by an acquaintance of Kise (since he, being a model, couldn’t exactly go to any other place when he currently had ears on his head and a tail on his back), Kuroko left home after having taken his breakfast in a leisurely way, considering the current circumstances.

 

On his way there, he also got absolutely no trouble whatsoever nor did he have to run over any roadblock or accident. So he was really starting to wonder why exactly he was the only one who wasn’t experiencing any side-effects from having eaten the weird looking jelly beans.

 

Kuroko not very easily spotted the small café (it was hidden quite well, in a small street in the middle of two tall buildings) and entered inside, noticing right away that both Kise and Kagami were already there, sat down on a table with enough chairs for all of them. The table was more to the small size, so they would have to squeeze in once everyone arrived. Except for them, there were absolutely no other customers.

 

Kise noticed his arrival right away, seeing as the bell on top of the door announced his presence. “Kurokocchiiiiiiii!! You’re here!”

 

“Yo, Kuroko,” also greeted Kagami, looking away from the plastic wrap on his hands to peer in the bluenette’s direction.

 

“Good morning, Kise-kun, Kagami-kun,” greeted back Kuroko, pulling a chair so he could sit down. “Huh? Didn’t Murasakibara-kun supposedly sleep in your house, Kise-kun?”

 

“Yes, I did,” answered a tiny voice. When Kuroko looked down to the table’s surface, he saw an extremely small version of the purple haired male sitting down near the coffee cup that Kise had ordered. The bluenette immediately arched an eyebrow at the sight. “You don’t need to be so surprised, Kuro-chin. I’m actually more surprised than you over the fact that I’m able to see you.”

 

“Oh, that’s right! I would immediately think that your curse or whatever would be turning completely invisible,” agreed the blonde, nodding his head successively. “What is your curse then?”

 

“Everything is normal so I’m starting to think that I don’t have any,” simply said the smaller male while running his eyes through the menu of the café.

 

“Or maybe you are already weird enough to also suffer a curse,” teased Kagami, a smirk tugging his lips upwards. “It seems the gods are being merciful on you, Kuroko.”

 

“I am not weird. At least, not as weird as Kise-kun,” deadpanned Kuroko while looking up from the small chart. Kise gave a pitched shriek in surprise at his words and the bluenette readily focused his teal eyes on him. Actually, it wasn’t on him but on the large coat with a hood that he was wearing, even inside of the café and with a warm temperature on the outside. “Kise-kun, I’m sorry but I…”

 

“Eh? What’s wrong, Kurokoc— Gyaaaah!” As soon as Kuroko lunged his hand forward and abruptly pulled down the hood covering his head, Kise screamed and tried to cover the two fluffy dog ears sticking out of his head with his hands. Observing the three males snickering at his appearance and reaction, Kise covered his head with the hood once again and crossed his arms over his chest, pouting. “You’re so mean, Kurokocchi! How can you laugh at me like that? And why are you the only one who isn’t suffering any change!?”

 

“Maybe since I was the only one who ate the jelly beans without evil intentions in mind, I didn’t get cursed like all of you did,” deadpanned the bluenette, the two currently cursed males grunting with displeasure over it. “Did anyone find anything about it yet?”

 

“Not really,” answered Kagami, picking up the plastic package where the jelly beans had come in. “I have never heard to these jelly beans or anything related to curses when you eat them. I contacted Tatsuya too, but he said he also didn’t know anything about it. And what’s written in the bag isn’t very helpful either. It only says that they grant wishes through misfortune, basically.”

 

“Aw, man~ What are we supposed to do now?” complained Kise, sniffing a little bit while clutching at his hood.

 

“Well, the best thing for us to do is to understand what kind of wish it is that you inadvertently made while eating the jelly beans,” pointed out Kuroko, setting down the menu on the table. “Maybe if you successfully achieve that wish, everything will go back to normal.”

 

“It’s a possibility,” agreed Kagami, nodding his head as he heard those words. “Kise, what is it that you want?”

 

“Eh? Ah… Hmm… I don’t know. I have a lot of things that I would like to do or have,” explained Kise while he deeply thought about what the redhead had said. “But I don’t really remember being thinking about it when I ate the jelly beans. I just really wanted to make Kurokocchi pay for the teasing he did on me because of the photos of Kasama— Ah, um… Because of… some things.”

 

“And what were you thinking about at the time, Murasakibara?” asked once again Kagami, turning his head to the small male sitting on top of the table while munching on a cookie that seemed way too big for his current stomach.

 

“Nothing really… Just about why would Muro-chin’s family send something so suspicious-looking to him,” leisurely explained the purple haired male while he gave quick bites to the sweet.

 

“What about you, Kuroko?” asked the redhead, turning his head around to the bluenette.

 

“Ah… Nothing in particular,” answered Kuroko, averting slightly the red gaze of the taller male. He couldn’t really say that at the time he was feeling too self-conscious over the fact that a _certain someone_ was looking so intently at him to really think about anything specific.

 

“Right,” suspiciously acknowledged Kagami, still looking at the bluenette. Was it he or Kuroko had just avoided giving them a straight answer on that one? “Okay, so none of you three was thinking about anything that could be considered a wish. Well, maybe Kise’s thoughts could, in a way. But I don’t really see anything in common. We probably should ask the same thing to the others, just in cas—“

 

“Hello, everyone! Dai-chan has arrived<3” yelled suddenly an extremely girly male voice as soon as the bell attached to the door started to play once again. When all of them looked over in its direction… they got so shocked they couldn’t formulate any type of reaction whatsoever to Aomine’s new “look” and “personality” except stare at him.

 

“G-Good morning…” greeted an extremely tired Momoi, entering in the café right behind the tanned male.

 

“Tetsu-chan~” yelped right away Aomine, running with his flexed arms pressed against his body in the table’s direction. He stopped right beside the bluenette and tightly hugged him. “How’s my sweet little shadow doing? I see you’re as cute as always<3”

 

“…” Kuroko was so taken aback by the sudden personality switch that all he did was let his body be hugged by the strong arms of the tanned male while his face remained completely blank. He simply didn’t know how he should react at this one.

 

“Tetsu-chan, Kagami-chan, what do you think of my clothes?” asked Aomine after having released the smaller male. He straightened his body, gave a quick spin and then made a pose, just as if doing such was a completely normal thing for him. “I’m super cute today, aren’t I?”

 

“Ah… Um…” started Kagami, not entirely sure of what he should say to a male with over 190cm wearing a frilly-on-the-bottom white shirt, black tight pants, a bracelet with different small apparels (like butterflies, stars and hearts) on his right wrist and make-up.

 

“You’re fantastic, Aomine-kun,” simply said Kuroko, giving him a thumbs-up while his face remained completely blank. The best thing he could do was enter in the game since he had no idea of what he could do otherwise about the tanned male at the moment.

 

“Really? Yay!” celebrated Aomine, giving a small jump while clapping his hands together. “But stop calling me ‘Aomine-kun’! I want you to call me ‘Dai-chan’, like Satsuki-chan does!”

 

“Aomine-kun,” simply said Kuroko, always staring to the taller male.

 

“No! Dai-chan!” corrected Aomine.

 

“Aomine-kun.”

 

“Dai-chan~!”

 

“Aomine-kun.”

 

“D-A-I-C-H-A-N~!”

 

“Aomine-kun.”

 

“Geez~ Why are you always so stubborn, Tetsu-chan!” pouted Aomine, sitting down on the chair next to Kagami while crossing his arms over his chest. He started sniffing a little bit and looked with puppy-eyes to the bluenette. “I… I want Tetsu-chan to call me ‘Dai-chan’… Please?”

 

“I’m sorry, Aomine-kun,” comforted Kuroko while softly patting the tanned male’s head. “I won’t call you that because it’s the best for you. If I did, I have a feeling that you would try to throw yourself out of a bridge when the curse is broken.”

 

“Eh? What curse?” asked Aomine, tilting his head slightly.

 

“This curse.” Kuroko picked up Murasakibara by the back of his small jacket and put him in front of the tanned male, and pulled down once again the hood of the blonde, revealing his dog ears.

 

“Kurokocchi, I told you to stop doing that!” complained Kise right away, breaking out of his stupefaction with that sudden action. He once again started to pull up the hood but two tanned hands gripped his wrists before he could.

 

“Oh my God! Kise-tan, you look so cute~” yelped Aomine in delight. He quickly switched his chair and sat down next to the blonde, grabbing the two ears of his head almost immediately. “Oooh! They are so fluffy and smooth and adorable<3 Ah, I want to keep on petting them for the rest of my life~”

 

“W-Wait…! Aominecchi, that tickles! S-Stop playing with them!!” complained Kise, trying to fight back against the tanned male’s advances on his dog ears. If it was the normal Aomine, he would have kicked him already but since he was currently with the personality of a girl, he was feeling extremely reticent to hurt him in any way if he could help it.

 

“Dai-chan, leave poor Ki-chan alone! He’s already feeling extremely down because of them!” admonished Momoi, sitting down next to the tanned male, since it would be the best seat to control and stop his completely crazy antics at the moment.

 

“Wait…” suddenly said Aomine, releasing the blonde’s dog ears. He scanned his body from head to toes and then his eyes opened in a surprised motion. “If you have dog ears right now, Kise-tan… Doesn’t that also mean you have a tail?”

 

“Kurokocchi, this café has some sweets with vanilla, let’s go see them right now!” yelped Kise instantly as soon as the tanned male finished his sentence, getting up from his chair in a single jump. He grabbed Kuroko by the arm and started to drag him to the counter where cakes and other pastries were being showcased.

 

“I see that there are things that will never change, whether Mine-chin considers himself a he or a she,” pointed out Murasakibara while chewing the cookie.

 

“You’re also suuuuper cute, Murasakibara-tan, so you don’t need to be that jealous~” grinned Aomine while lowering slightly his head to look at the purple haired male.

 

“I’m not jealous in the least,” corrected Murasakibara, glaring slightly at the tanned male with his tiny purple eyes. “I want to hurry up and get my real size back.”

 

“Ah… Um… On that note…” interrupted Kagami, still a little bit lost on how he should act towards the taller male. He softly scratched his face with the nervousness and looked over to the male sitting down in front of him. “What were you think about while you ate the jelly beans yesterday?”

 

“Jelly beans? You mean those weird looking things from yesterday’s gathering?” asked Aomine, raising slightly an eyebrow. He saw both Kagami and Murasakibara nodding his head and started thinking about it. “Hmm… I think I was wondering about what kind of face Tetsu-chan would make when he ate them and how funny it would be to tell Kagami-chan about it today.”

 

“Ah… So another inconclusive thought…” sighed Kagami, dropping his head slightly in a demoralized motion.

 

“Eh? What, what? Did you find out anything about the curse or whatever it is that’s going on?” asked Momoi right away, hope glistening in her eyes. It was almost painful to see Aomine acting in such a way, after all.

 

“No, not really,” sighed the redhead once again, dropping his arms on top of the table. “We just know that whatever it is that’s happening was driven out of them making some sort of wish while they were eating the weird looking jelly beans. I read the package they came in but I didn’t find any clues about it.”

 

“Hm… Let me make a quick search in the Internet about it,” said Momoi right away, taking her cell phone out of her purse. She immediately opened the search engine and started writing several things on it, in hopes that any of them would lead to some sort of explanation on the current events. “Oh, what’s Tetsu-kun’s curse, by the way?”

 

“We don’t know. Kuro-chin said that there’s nothing particularly abnormal going on around him,” explained Murasakibara, putting down the cookie on the table and rubbing his filled to the brim stomach, even though there was still half of the little sweet left uneaten.

 

“Eh~ I wanted to see him getting cursed,” complained the pink haired girl while searching around for data on the matter. “Maybe getting cat ears and tail. Or bunny ones! Whatever it would be I’m sure it would look super cute on him~ But… does that mean that he didn’t make any wish when he ate them?”

 

“Hm… I wonder…” cryptically answered Kagami, throwing a glance to where the blonde and the bluenette were currently chatting about the pastries they were choosing. “The answer he gave us was the most inconclusive one out of all of—“

 

Suddenly the door to the café was open with a _bang_ and a green haired male came stumbling in, panting beyond measure. When all of them looked over in its direction and focused their eyes on him, they noticed that it was Midorima.

 

The green haired male slowly picked himself up and walked in their direction, while staggering slightly. As soon as he reached the table, he sat down on one of the chairs and adjusted his glasses, one of the lenses slightly cracked.

 

“I… Haa… I don’t know what’s going on… right now…” started Midorima, trying to control his hasty breathing. “The only thing I’m sure about is that I’m starting to develop a phobia to step outside of my bed because I was almost killed 17 times since I got out of it.”

 

“W-What happened, Midorin?” hesitantly asked the pink haired girl, lifting her eyes from the phone with an eyebrow slightly arched.

 

“I have my lucky item with me,” explained Midorima, putting on top of the table a key-chain with a small four-leaf clover made out of rubber. “But I’ve been experiencing life-threatening situation since the moment I got out of bed. The bookshelf in my bedroom almost felt on top of me all of a sudden, I was almost run over by cars, trains, motorcycles, bicycles and taxis eight times, chased by dogs and cats, and flowerpots started to rain down on me every now and then!”

 

“You sure have it hard on you, Mido-chin…” comforted Murasakibara, looking at the green haired male with eyes full of pity.

 

“Hmph!” Midorima simply turned his head away from the tiny version of the purple haired male, sulking slightly.

 

“What were you thinking about while you were eating the weird looking jelly bean?” asked Kagami right away, not wanting to talk more than necessary with the other male.

 

“What does that have anything to do with you?” asked back Midorima, looking at the redhead with a condescending look on his face.

 

“Just answer, Midorin. It’s important for us to figure out how to get you all out of this mess,” explained Momoi, releasing a soft sigh while getting back to her research on her phone.

 

“…” Midorima adjusted his glasses once again and averted the gaze of all of those present in the table. “I was simply remembering that I needed to text back Takao because of the message that he had sent me earlier that afternoon.”

 

“Ugh…” grunted both Kagami and Murasakibara, as they obtained another answer that wasn’t helping them in any way.

 

“Uwah~ Midorimacchi, what the heck happened to you?” asked Kise, who had returned alone from the other side of the shop. He motioned down to the same seat he was in before and dropped his body there. “You almost look like a hurricane survivor or something along those lines…”

 

“Shut up, Kise,” hissed the green-haired male while turning his head away from the blonde. “Are we all here already?”

 

“The only one missing is Akashicchi,” said Kise while playing with the spoon on the saucer of his coffee cup. “You know he’s always the last one to arrive when things get serious. Kurokocchi is in the counter trying to decide which pastry he will buy.”

 

“Kuroko sure is taking this is a quite half-heartedly way. What kind of curse does he have?” asked Midorima, looking back to the group of people sitting at the table.

 

“He says he doesn’t have any,” simply answered the blonde, shrugging his shoulders.

 

“I’m starting to dislike him more and more,” grudgingly said the green haired male, a vein popping slightly out on his forehead. “Why is he the only one who doesn’t hav—“

 

“Here it is!” suddenly exclaimed Momoi, getting up from her seat with the excitement. “I’ve found it! I found out about the curse of the jelly beans!!”

 

“Eh!? Tell us, then!” urged Kise immediately, his eyes opened immensely with the expectation to know how he could solve his current predicament.

 

Momoi sat down on her chair once again and cleared her throat. “I’m going to read what the website I found says. ‘What is it that people seek the most in the world? It’s simple – happiness. And what makes a person happier than knowing that their love is requited? These magical jelly beans will help anyone achieve the love of their life when eaten. The only downside of these little cupids is that you will have to go through several trials to achieve that happiness. But fear not, Romeos and Juliets, the little curse will be broken as soon as you confess to your other half.’ …Is what the article says…”

 

“…Eh…?” managed to interject Kise while dropping the spoon on the table. He looked completely flabbergasted to the pink haired girl, and then looked around to the other males, who looked just as shocked as him. “Wait, what?”

 

“In other words, it seems that you have to confess to your crushes to break free from the curse,” repeated once again Momoi.

 

“EEEEEEEEEHHHHHHH!?” yelled all of them in unison, Kagami and Aomine slamming their hands on the table.

 

“What? It doesn’t sound all that hard,” continued Momoi, tilting her head slightly at the males. “All you have to do is confess to whoever you like, right? It’s not out of this world. I do it all the time to Tetsu-kun<3”

 

“And that has turned out so well, Satsuki-chan…” added Aomine while looking at the pink haired girl with slight pity in his eyes.

 

“Shut up, Dai-chan! You have to confess to whoever girl you’re in love with so I bet you will experience it too first hand!” yelled the flustered girl.

 

“’Girl’? Why would I confess to another girl?” simply asked back Aomine, tilting slightly his head with extreme confusion.

 

“…Eh…?” softly interjected all of them in unison once again.

 

“H-Holy shit… Aominecchi just came out of the closet in front of all of us…” incredulously stuttered Kise, motioning his hand to his pants’ pocket to take out his cell phone. He pressed a few buttons and then motioned it forward in the tanned male’s direction. “Can you repeat that again? I want to record it and use it against you whenever you start teasing me again after this curse is broken.”

 

“This is not the time to be kidding around, Ki-chan!” admonished Momoi, shoving the blonde’s cell phone away from Aomine as he continued to look around to all of them, completely lost if he had said something he shouldn’t.

 

“Ah… Um… O-Okay, so now we understand the situations that all of y-you are under,” interrupted Kagami, clearing his throat as he tried to soften the soft shade of pink that appeared in his cheeks due to this unexpected discovery about the tanned male. “So what now? Each one of you will confess to your crush so you can all return to—“

 

“Wait, if we have been cursed this means we like someone, right?” interrupted this time Kise, banging his hands against the table. “Which means, since Akashicchi has been cursed, he’s also crushing on someone right now!”

 

“Oh my God, the devil has fallen in love~” yelped Aomine in an excited and shriek voice. “Isn’t that, like, super romantic?”

 

“Aominecchi, you’re, like, super creeping me out,” pointed out the blonde, looking at the taller male with a certain aversion to his current personality. It was fun in the beginning to see him acting in such an opposite way to his usual personality… but now it was starting to become plainly disturbing. “Anyways! So I, Aominecchi, Murasakibaracchi, Midorimacchi and Akashicchi have our own crushes, huh… Would you look at that! …Ah! Then… does that mean that the only one without a crush is Kurokocchi? He wasn’t affected by the curse, after all.”

 

“Eh? Kuroko/Tetsu-chan has someone he likes,” answered in unison Kagami and Aomine, exchanging a quick glance with each other afterwards.

 

“Eh? H-He has?” hesitantly asked Momoi, her heart speeding up all of a sudden. She slowly lifted her hand and pointed a finger at herself. “D-Does that mean that he… likes me?”

 

“No way,” answered all of them at the same time, even Midorima and Murasakibara joining in.

 

“Geez… You sure know how to destroy a girl’s dreams…” sulked Momoi, crossing her arms over her chest and puffing out her cheeks.

 

“Then if he has someone he… likes… why doesn’t he have any curse?” asked Midorima, adjusting his glasses for the hundredth time, his cheeks slightly pink. The fact that his former teammates and current rivals knew that he had a little crush on someone was displeasing him deeply. “Is it that he confessed to them already or something?”

 

“I don’t think he has since— Ah, well, I don’t think he confessed to them or anything,” answered Kagami quite hesitantly, scratching his head softly.

 

“Then let’s ask him if he really has a crush on someone. He must have some sort of curse too, if that is indeed true,” added Kise, getting slightly excited to know about such a privy detail about the bluenette. They once again heard the door being opened and the blonde readily looked over in its direction. “Oh, Akashicchi is here!”

 

 _Then I don’t think Kuroko will be answering any of your questions, Kise,_ inwardly pointed out Kagami as he peered sideways to the smaller redhead who was walking in their direction.

 

“Good morning,” greeted Akashi, giving a quick upturn to his lips. “Are we all present and correct?”

 

“Yes, we are,” confirmed Midorima, adjusting his glasses.

 

“Kuroko?” asked Akashi as he undressed his jacket while skirting his eyes around the table. He had dropped by the bluenette’s house before coming to the café, but he couldn’t exactly take a taxi there due to the way he was currently speaking (or the way others perceived his speaking since all words sounded completely normal in his head), he had to walk and when he got there, Kuroko had apparently already left. So he just resigned himself and came to the meeting spot like they had agreed.

 

“Kurokocchi is choosing something to eat,” explained the blonde, trying to look over to the counter. “He’s been there for quite a while so he must be back in a few minutes. He must be really having a hard time deciding, since the café received a big variety of cakes today, apparently.”

 

Akashi softly chuckled and put down his coat in one of the two last free chairs, looking sideways to the other one. Kuroko would probably sit there and that meant he would be the one who could observe more closely whatever curse the bluenette was currently under.

 

The moment when the redhead was going to sit down, however, the sound of a plate shattering on the floor resounded through the entire shop. All of them immediately looked in the direction where the loud noise had come from and saw Kuroko there, completely motionless there with a bright red face and his mouth opening and closing like he wanted to say something but wasn’t being able to.

 

“Kuroko?” called Akashi right away, tilting his head slightly as he wondered what was going on.

 

“…!” The blush in his face intensified by a tenfold and the bluenette readily averted the redhead’s gaze on him, giving a shaky step backwards and bumping into the table behind him.

 

“Wait, Tetsu-chan! Are you okay!?” yelped Aomine in panic, getting up from his seat immediately and running over in his direction, skirting around the broken plate in the floor so he wouldn’t get cut in the shards. He motioned his hands forward to support the shaken up smaller male but he averted his touch almost immediately. “Come sit down in the table.”

 

“I’ll go get him a glass of water!” said Kagami also in a slight panic, getting up from his seat and walking with quick steps to the counter.

 

“I-I’m okay, Aomine-kun. You don’t need to worry, but please don’t touch me right now,” weakly warned Kuroko, walking with unsteady and wobbly steps to the table once again. Akashi pulled out his chair so he could seat more quickly, but he was so flustered right now that he couldn’t nod in acknowledgement, much less look in the redhead’s direction.

 

“Are you really okay, Kuro-chin?” asked Murasakibara, getting up from the place he had been sitting since he got to the café and walking to peer at the slightly downcast face of the bluenette. “Your face is bright red.”

 

“Do you have a fever or something?” also asked Midorima, a part of him worried about the smaller male even though they weren’t the closest of friends. Actually, they weren’t even friends, they were former teammates and current rivals.

 

Kuroko simply shook his head in denial and started to lift his hands to his face, his breathing slightly pitched. However, while he was motioning his hands up, his elbow softly bumped on Akashi’s, who was also sitting down on the chair beside him, and he just quickly clutched his mouth shut with his hands, preventing the extremely embarrassing sound that almost exited his throat. “Ngggh!”

 

“K-Kurokocchi…?” hesitantly called Kise, an eyebrow slightly perked up as he observed the smaller male holding his mouth tightly closed, his eyes also strongly shut.

 

“I-I think I need to go to the bathroom,” stuttered Kuroko, immediately getting up from his seat once again and staggeringly running to the counter once again, where the bathroom was situated near.

 

“What the hell’s gotten over him all of a sudden?” asked the blonde to no one in particular, watching together with all the others as he disappeared on the sharp corner that the shop had.

 

Kuroko continued to run in the toilet’s direction, passing by Kagami on his way there, who tried to talk with and stop him. But he was currently in a predicament that couldn’t be solved by talking with his teammate. Not with him, and not with anyone. As soon as he reached the bathroom’s door, he opened it ajar and got inside of one of the stalls there, closing it shut and locking it.

 

“Oh shit…” softly cursed the bluenette while leaning his back on the stall’s door and letting his body slid down through it, crouching down on the floor as soon the motion stopped. He looked down to his crotch and cursed inwardly a few more times, grunting exasperatedly.

 

“Kuroko?” sounded Kagami’s voice from the other side of the stall, who knocked softly in the door to check if it really was him inside. “Are you okay? What’s the matter? Are you feeling unwell or something like that?”

 

“K-Kagami-kun?” hesitantly called the bluenette, his breathing still pitched and heavy. However, it hadn’t become like that due to running to the bathroom.

 

“Yeah, it’s me. What happened? I was fetching you a glass with water and then you passed by me while you were almost running for your life,” added Kagami, his voice full of worry and panic.

 

“K-Kagami-kun, I-I have to get a way of going home. Right now!” said Kuroko in a weak and shaky voice. “I-I can’t stay here with all of you at the moment. Actually, I probably won’t be able to exit my house until the curse is broken.”

 

“What? Why?” asked Kagami once again. He was about to knock on the door of the bathroom stall once again when he heard it being unlocked and slowly getting opened all but a small crack. However, that small gap was more than enough for him to see the bright red features of the smaller male and hear him panting more clearly.

 

“I’m too turned on at the moment to be allowed to be on a café or walk on the street.”

 

“…Eh…?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mafy's Info:  
> [Twitter](https://twitter.com/Mafy_mod)  
> [Tumblr](http://mafymod.tumblr.com/)  
> [Ko-fi](https://ko-fi.com/I2I49KM4)  
> You can show your support for my fanfictions and help me achieve my goals of self-publication for original stories in Ko-fi! [UPDATE: Found an artist, character profile of M0 is up and M1 is coming out in a couple of hours!]


	6. Unexpected (But Not Fully Unwanted)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: smut alert~  
> Enjoy :3

“…Y-You are what…?” incredulously asked Kagami, his mouth gaping wide open as he looked with eyes screaming in surprise to the half-hidden, due to the stall’s door, completely red face of the bluenette.

 

“Do I really need to repeat myself?” deadpanned quite shyly Kuroko, gripping the side of the door more strongly. When he observed the redhead softly nodding his head while continuing to look flabbergasted to him, he released a soft sigh. “I-I’m…………………….. turned on, okay?”

 

“…” Kagami maintained his mouth wide open for a few more seconds as he processed the information on his brain and then closed it, straightening his back slightly. “Okay, first of all… Dear God, Kuroko Tetsuya is actually normal enough to get a boner.”

 

“That’s not exactly helping, Kagami-kun,” deadpanned once again Kuroko, his eyes displaying the small glint of a glare behind the cloudiness of arousal.

 

“Sorry, sorry,” apologized Kagami, hiding with his hand the laughter that was starting to creep up inside of him now that the initial shock was starting to fade. He cleared his throat and dropped his hand once again. “Anyways… Why the hell are you turned on in the first place?”

 

“That’s what I would like to know,” answered Kuroko, the deadpan look on his face slowly morphing into a panicky expression as he continued talking. “I don’t know what’s going on but the second I saw Akashi-kun, I got turned on. The moment he called my name, I got even more turned on. And when our elbows accidentally touched, I—“

 

“You got _extremely_ turned on?” interrupted Kagami, starting to somewhat pity the smaller male.

 

“Ugh…” Kuroko dropped his body and crouched down, hiding his face in his knees while nodding his head in agreement. If he had pitied any of his former teammates because of their curses, he felt now jealous of them for it being something sort of easy for them to deal with.

 

“Ah… Um… Don’t worry, Kuroko,” tried to comfort Kagami, rubbing the back of his neck with his hand while averting his eyes from the smaller male. “We found out how the curse can be broken. All you have to do is confess to the person you have a crush on.”

 

“Eh?” interjected the bluenette, lifting his head a little bit to peer with his teal eyes to the taller male.

 

“Which means, all you have to do is… confess to Akashi, I guess?” continued Kagami a little bit hesitantly. “So there’s still hope for you! You don’t need to spend the rest of your life closed off in your room or whatever.”

 

“But how…” started mumbling Kuroko, hiding his face once again.

 

“Huh?” asked Kagami, not being able to hear what the smaller male was saying due to his muffled voice. “Can you say that again?”

 

“But how can I confess to Akashi-kun?” repeated Kuroko, abruptly raising his head once again to look at the redhead with a dead panicking expression on his usually expressionless face. “If I can’t confess to him under normal circumstances, how do you expect me to confess when all that is running inside of my head is—“

 

“How much you would like to fuck at the moment?” interrupted Kagami, a sly smirk fully erupting in his face this time. When he saw Kuroko dropping his head once again to his knees in a completely demoralized way, he cleared his throat and wiped the smirk out of his features. “A-Anyway, you can’t spend the rest of the day here in the toilet. Let’s get you away from Akashi for now, since it seems like he’s the catalyst for your curse.”

 

“I would if I could…” mumbled Kuroko, his voice muffled. He lunged his hand forward and started closing the door of the stall he was currently inside. “I’ll just stay here until everyone leaves. Right now, I’m… not in the _proper appearance_ to go outside…”

 

“Then just jerk off so you can have an appearance ‘proper’ enough for you to get out of the café and start formulating a plan to successfully confess to Akashi,” pointed out Kagami after having released a sigh, once again directing his words to a closed door.

 

“Do you seriously expect me to m-masturbate while all of my friends are outside wondering what the heck is happening with me?” asked Kuroko with a panicky voice.

 

“Do you have a better solution for it?” asked back Kagami, raising an eyebrow slightly as he continued to intently keep the closed door under his gaze. When he got absolutely no retort to his question, he released a quick sigh. “If you want, I can keep guard outside of the toilet to stop anyone from entering inside while you’re… well, taking care of it.”

 

“A part of me is thankful that you are trying to help me out… the other is wishing that I had a basketball with me right now, so I could gut-punch you with it using Ignite Pass Kai…” mumbled grudgingly Kuroko.

 

Kagami snorted softly at that and started walking to the door of the bathroom. “I’ll be outside. I’ll try to think up an excuse for you to get out of here earlier than expected so when you’re done, just come out.”

 

“Please don’t. Knowing you, it would be a dead giveaway that I was using some sort of an excuse to run away from something,” deadpanned Kuroko as he lifted his head once again to look to the door in front of him.

 

“Shut up! I’m just trying to help, okay?” roared Kagami, opening the door of the toilet so he could step outside. “And don’t take too long! I have the feeling that they will start to think that it’s really weird that neither of us is back yet soon enough! And some of them actually have enough brains to think of it as such.”

 

Kuroko continued to look to the stall’s door even after a few seconds since he had heard the bathroom door closing with a click have passed, the whole division filled with only the sound of his laboured breathing. Then he sighed and let his head drop once again, shyly peering down at his erection.

 

He _really_ didn’t want to do this type of thing under this type of circumstances, but he didn’t have any other choice. He couldn’t go out of the bathroom with his flag at full mast, much less to the street in that condition. Getting arrested for public indecency wasn’t an achievement that he wanted to be registered on any of his papers. His pride also didn’t allow him to go out in such a way, though it was exactly that same pride that was stopping him to get some release.

 

“Ugh…” winced lightly Kuroko, the fabric of his pants tightening around his hard member in an extremely uncomfortable and painful way. Still fighting against his primal instincts, the bluenette hesitantly motioned his hands down and started unfastening his pants, so that at least some of the tension would be eased.

 

However, having talked earlier with Kagami about Akashi had made him even more aroused and the slight relief he felt when he opened his pants made his head spin with unfulfilled lust. Kuroko really didn’t want to do this here. Not in a bathroom stall. Not with his teammate and partner in his high school basketball club right outside of the bathroom door. Not with his friends probably worrying about the weird reactions he had had earlier. And definitely not with Akashi just a few meters away from where he was currently on.

 

But he also couldn’t deprive or deny his own body on it.

 

Unwillingly, Kuroko put his hand inside of his underwear and hesitantly pulled out his erection, feeling immediately the cold air touching his hot member. Inwardly admonishing himself to the extreme, he wrapped his fingers around his cock and gave a light pump to it, covering his mouth with his free hand to stop a half-moan to be heard by anyone, but also by himself.

 

“Ngh… Haa—“ His breathing getting more picked up as he continued to hesitantly move his hand up and down, the bluenette clutched more tightly at his mouth, doing his utmost to prevent his already full moans from barging out. “Haa… Ah—“

 

 _Oh God, what exactly am I doing right now?,_ inwardly reminded himself Kuroko, continuing his admonishing thoughts. Outside the bathroom door was Kagami. And then a few meters more to the inside of the café were Aomine, Kise, Murasakibara, Midorima, Momoi… and Akashi. He shouldn’t be doing this here. _I will never be able to enter inside of a bathroom in a café after this…_

 

He knew this was improper. He knew this was not something he would ever do in his entire life. He knew all of that oh so well. However, he couldn’t stop his hand’s movements, not even slow them down. Kuroko could only continue to pump his hard cock while tightly covering his mouth, in hopes that his moans would not be heard from outside.

 

And deep down, he wasn’t feeling aroused only because of his curse and the unexpected reaction it had brought forth due to Akashi, but also because the redhead was so close by to him. The bluenette knew where Akashi was right now, knew what he was probably doing and discussing with his friends, knew how he had called his name with worry when he dropped the plate on the floor.

 

“Ahh— Ngh…” Kuroko closed tightly his teal eyes, trying to drive such thoughts out of his head. Akashi was his friend and just because he liked him, it didn’t give him the right to use him for such improper things. He hastened the motions of his hand, wanting to finish the soonest he could to, later on, hollow himself in even more admonishing thinking, dropping his head back as he felt his body shuddering due to the closeness to let his release burst free. “Ahh— Akas—!”

 

Though he got to climax, Kuroko was really feeling like burying himself in a hole for the rest of his life right now.

 

-.-

 

For the hundredth time in the last ten minutes, Akashi looked over his shoulder in the direction where the bluenette had run off to. Probably to the bathroom, like he had said he would.

 

“Akashi, if you are that worried, just go check on Kuroko already,” said Midorima while adjusting his cracked glasses, releasing a soft sigh afterwards. “It’s not by having you continuously looking in the bathroom’s direction that will make Kuroko return more quickly. Actually, you should just stop with it. Seeing _you_ fidgeting is plainly disturbing.”

 

“…” Akashi cleared his throat and looked back to the table where almost all of them were reuniting in. “So we now know that this whole ‘jelly bean curse’ is a blessing in disguise. Beating around the bush won’t help us in any way since it would probably bring us back to the drawing board due to the curse. So, all in all, the ball is in our court.”

 

“Ah… Whatever it is that you said… I’m sure you’re right, Akashicchi…” hesitantly acknowledged Kise, giving a quick nod with his head.

 

“In a way, he said that it’s up to us how we solve this mess since all we need to do is to confess to someone,” explained Midorima, adjusting his glasses once again. “And I do have to agree with Akashi. My love life doesn’t concern any of you and I want to maintain it that way.”

 

“Oh, c’mon~ I’m sure you want to know who is the person each one of us is crushing one, Midorimacchi~” cheerfully pointed out the blonde. A smirk appeared on his features and he readily pointed a finger to the redhead. “Especially Akashicchi!”

 

“Curiosity killed the cat, Kise,” simply answered Akashi while giving a quick slurp to his tea. He put the cup once again in the saucer and added, “A little knowledge is a dangerous thing, after all.”

 

“Woah… I just heard the fanciest threat of my whole life…” mumbled Kise while sitting straight in his seat once again.

 

“Ugh… But I’m worried about Tetsu-kun, now…” added Momoi, giving one more glance in the bathroom’s direction. “Do you think his curse was only activated now, for some reason?”

 

“Well, maybe. But Kagami-chan hasn’t returned yet, so he’s probably with Tetsu-chan~” pointed out Aomine, delicately eating a slice of cake using a fork. “So we don’t really have much to worry about. Oh, Murasakibara-tan, do you want to eat this little piece of chocolate? I can’t eat too much sugar or I will need to go on a diet.”

 

“Yeah, I’ll eat it… or that’s what I would like to say,” slowly answered Murasakibara, lifting his head slightly to peer at the tanned male while in his laid down position on top of the table. “But I think I’m experiencing for the first time in my life a completely full stomach… so I’ll pass on the offer.”

 

“Eh~ But you only ate a few cookies and potato chips,” added Aomine, lowering his face to look more closely to the tiny version of the purple haired male.

 

“And it was more than enough,” grumbled Murasakibara, feeling somewhat offended by the tanned male’s words. He prompted his body up to a sitting position and crossed his legs. “And I need to find a way to return to Akita so I don’t have time to eat snacks.”

 

“Oh, yeah! How will we solve that one?” suddenly stepped in Kise, looking down to the purple haired male. “Should we just put you inside of a box and ship you there through the post office?”

 

“There’s actually method to Kise’s madness sometimes,” shortly added Akashi, peering down from the blonde to the purple haired male.

 

“I don’t think that’s humanly correct,” pointed out Midorima while looking down to the tiny male. “And post offices are known for being rough when dealing with most packages.”

 

“I would most likely starve to death if you did that, so I don’t want to. It’s troublesome too,” added Murasakibara, also crossing his arms over his chest in a sulking motion.

 

“…” Akashi peered one more time to the bathroom and picked up his teacup, drinking the rest of his drink and getting up from his seat afterwards. “Excuse me.”

 

Akashi started walking over to the counter and then turned left, in the bathroom’s direction. As soon as he saw the door, he also saw Kagami there, leaning over the wall a few steps away from the door. When he entered in his field of view, the taller male straightened his back, gave a quick glance to the bathroom’s door and then started walking with hasty steps to the smaller male’s encounter.

 

“A-Akashi… What’s up?” asked Kagami right away, trying to stall the smaller male for as long as it was humanly possible for him to do.

 

“Kuroko is?” asked right away Akashi, his gaze permanently positioned in the door.

 

“Ah… Um…” started mumbling Kagami, trying to think up a reason good enough for the smaller redhead to _not_ step inside of the bathroom. Which it would be a herculean task since Akashi always knew everything, and especially when someone was lying. “Um… K-Kuroko’s on the phone and having an extremely important phone call right now.”

 

“That excuse is the best thing since sliced bread,” sighed Akashi in a quite ironical tone, something that was extremely rare for him to do. However, he knew that the bluenette had left his bag, including his cell phone, in his seat and, as such, Kagami was throwing half-assed excuses at him right now. The smaller redhead gave a step forward in the bathroom’s direction, but the other male quickly put himself in front of him once again.

 

“Ah…” Kagami felt a slight shiver creep up his spine when the smaller male lifted his red eyes to look at him and averted his eyes from him right away, rubbing the back of his neck as he tried to think of another excuse (which would most likely fail like the last one). “Listen, Kuroko is probably almost done in the bathroom. So you can go sit back in the table to wait for him. There’s not exactly anything wrong with him at the moment and he won’t die for being in the bathroom for so long. So… just go away for now.”

 

“I don’t count my chickens before the eggs have hatched. Let me pass,” simply added Akashi, taking a step forward once again and readily being blocked by the taller male’s body. “You are starting to bite off more than you can chew, Kagami, and it might cost you an arm and a leg.”

 

“I don’t mean to interfere with you or Kuroko, but right now, the best you can do is return to the table,” added Kagami, gulping down hard when he heard the threatening words of the smaller male (or what he thought it was a threat, since he didn’t understand half of what Akashi had said). “He’s not exactly in the best of conditions to deal with you at the mom—“

 

Suddenly, the door behind the taller male’s back started to open and Kuroko’s blue locks of hair came into view. Kagami and Akashi readily looked over in his direction and when the smaller male’s teal eyes entered in contact with Akashi’s red ones, a myriad of shades of red erupted in the bluenette’s face. Kuroko only had time to hastily close the door once again.

 

 _Oh boy,_ mumbled inwardly Kagami as he lunged his hand up to the side of his head. He observed as Akashi quickly departed from near him and started to walk over to the bathroom’s door. _Sorry, Kuroko. But you’re on your own now. I can’t help you any more than this._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mafy's Info:  
> [Twitter](https://twitter.com/Mafy_mod)  
> [Tumblr](http://mafymod.tumblr.com/)  
> [Ko-fi](https://ko-fi.com/I2I49KM4)  
> You can show your support for my fanfictions and help me achieve my goals of self-publication for original stories in Ko-fi! [UPDATE: Found an artist, character profile of M0 is up and M1 is coming out in a couple of hours!]


	7. All is fair in love and war

Kuroko closed the bathroom’s door the quickest he could with his sluggish body, another wave of extreme arousal bubbling inside of it and making a new erection pop up in his pants. He glued his back to the door and strongly pressed it there, making so that it would be impossible to open the door (as long as it wouldn’t be a muscle-head trying to slam it open, of course).

 

“Kuroko?” sounded the redhead’s voice from the other side of the door, a soft knock following right after. “Are you feeling under the weather?”

 

“Ghh…” Kuroko’s legs threatened to buckle down as he heard Akashi’s voice and the bluenette readily motioned his hands sideways to clutch at the frame of the door for support, still strongly pressing his back on the door. “A-Akashi-kun… Please leave me… alone for now…”

 

“But you just ran to the bathroom at the drop of a hat once again,” continued Akashi, dropping the hand that was about to move to the knob. Forcing open the door probably wouldn’t be the best thing to do right now, as the unusual panicky tone on the bluenette’s voice was making it seem.

 

“I-I’m fine, so please just… Ngh… Just return to the table,” tried to beckon Kuroko in between heavy panting and the shivers that the taller male’s voice caused in his body.

 

“I really would like to give you the benefit of the doubt, but I know you are putting wool over my eyes right now,” pointed out Akashi, thinking intently whether he should really forcefully open the door or not. The bluenette’s voice sounded extremely pained and it was starting to worry him to no end the fact that he didn’t know what was going on with him. “Open the door, Kuroko.”

 

“N-No, I c-can’t…” panted Kuroko, his body almost at breaking point. The only reason why he hadn’t fallen to the floor yet was his sheer will to not let that door being open for anything in this world. And with the way his body was reacting, he definitely couldn’t let Akashi, in particular, enter in the bathroom right now. “P-Please go back to the t-table…”

 

“Kuroko, drastic times call for drastic measures,” continued Akashi, releasing a quick sigh as he grabbed the doorknob with his hand. “It would be as easy as pie for me to open the door right now. You do it or I will.”

 

“N-No… I don’t want to…” feebly protested Kuroko, straightening his back against the door once again after his legs released one more threatening jolt of losing their strength once and for all. He closed his eyes tightly and clutched to the door frame with even more intensity. “P-Please leave me alone…”

 

“Kuroko,” called once again Akashi, starting to feel a tiny bit of frustration about the current situation.

 

“Akashi, I think you really should just leave him alone for now,” advised Kagami, feeling extremely bad about the predicament that the smaller redhead was unconsciously causing on his teammate.

 

“You are being a back seat driver, Kagami. Let me solve this,” almost hissed Akashi. He released a sigh. It wasn’t going to be by being angry at the taller male that things would be solved. He just needed to quickly find out what was the problem with Kuroko’s curse and then discover the best method to help him deal with it.

 

If what Momoi had discovered was correct, then Akashi needed to find a way to convince Kuroko to talk directly with him, not through a closed bathroom door. If he couldn’t, he would spend the rest of his life talking in idioms. However, Kuroko would need to have the exact same conversation the redhead wanted to have with him with someone else, and that was irking him immensely.

 

It was probably due to that little fact that Akashi was in such a haste to talk with the bluenette. He wanted to confess to Kuroko before he had a chance to confess to whomever it was his crush.

 

“Let’s get down to brass tacks, Kuroko,” proceeded Akashi, gripping more tightly the knob. “Do you already know the ropes of the situation we are in?”

 

“I-I do… I do and t-that’s why I can’t open the d-door,” clumsily stuttered Kuroko, his panic growing all the more as his arousal continued to grow stronger and stronger by the constant back and forth conversation between him and the redhead. He took a shaky deep breath and opened his mouth to speak. “Just leave me alone! Get away from me! Right now!”

 

“Over my dead body!” answered Akashi right away, turning the knob around and pushing the door forward, which readily bumped against something that didn’t even seem to take any effort to move. He fully opened it and looked down to the floor, where Kuroko had been pushed down to with the motions of the door. “I’m not someone who misses his boat, whatever shape it may come in.”

 

“Ugh…” Slowly, Kuroko tried to push his body up from the floor, but with the redhead now present in his field of view, he lost completely the last little strength he still had in him. As a last resort, he tried to once again crawl back to the stall but his arms and legs were as shaky and mushy as tofu so he didn’t go all that far before Akashi fully stepped inside of the bathroom.

 

“Kuroko,” softly called Akashi, crouching down next to the still-trying-to-run-away smaller male. He released a quick sigh and motioned his hands forward, grabbing the bluenette by the waist to help him to a sitting position.

 

“Nghh!” As soon as he felt the redhead’s hands land on him, Kuroko strongly bit his lower lip as a mean to seal completely the moan that wanted to escape once again at the touch and his whole body shook with unjustified pleasure. He would have fought against it, but his body had been completely stripped of any form of strength, which had been exchanged with lust and want, and his body was swiftly turned around to a sitting position, the redhead right in front of him.

 

So he could save himself the embarrassment of his life, Kuroko immediately pulled his knees up to his chest and buried his face there, trying to think about something other than finding a way to quench his desires with the redhead.

 

Seeing the smaller male retract his own body almost instantly, Akashi released another soft sigh and got closer to him. “I don’t understand why you are trying to keep me at bay but it won’t be by beating around the bush that you will solve anything. Hiding too.”

 

“Haa… Go… away… Please… Haa…” gasped Kuroko in between heavy pants, pressing his face even closer to his knees. His head was spinning in such a way that he no longer knew if he was directing those words to the taller male or to his own arousal. Maybe it was at both. “Just… leave…”

 

“Kuroko,” called one more time Akashi, motioning his hands forward to the bluenette. He softly cupped the little space of pale flesh that he could see and started to slowly pull his face away from the knees. The redhead could both feel the high temperature of the smaller male’s skin and the shivering it displayed, and he started to wonder if he really was feeling sick or having a fever. Kuroko continued to fight against him but he quite easily managed to fully pull up his face. “Kuroko, look at me.”

 

“Ngh… Haa… Akashi…kun…” feebly whimpered Kuroko, looking with his teal eyes right back to the red ones intently gazing at him. He slowly motioned his trembling hands up and clutched at the wrists of the redhead, giving clumsy tugs to try to pull them away from him. “Let… go… Ngh! Please… Akashi-kun…”

 

“…!” Akashi kept looking completely paralyzed to the bluenette in front of him: his eyes were watery and half-lidded, his cheeks completely flushed and his chest displayed quick motions of inflating and deflating. Right now, was Kuroko…?

 

“Akashi…kun… let… go…” continued begging Kuroko, shaking his head softly to try to move the hands away from his skin, also using his hands to give short tugs to the taller male’s wrists. “Haa… Please… Akashi-kun… Please…!”

 

“Kuroko…” Akashi gave a quick swallow and pulled the bluenette’s face closer to him. He no longer understood if Kuroko was strongly refusing him and trying to push him away… or if seducing the heck out of him. He gave a quick jerk to his head and softly pressed his lips on the bluenette’s slightly parted ones, to see which one of the cases was really in effect. Kuroko didn’t refuse him in the least. “All is fair in love and war…”

 

Akashi got a better hold of the smaller male’s features and kissed him once again, inserting his tongue in Kuroko’s hot and slippery mouth. He left one of his hands cupping the rosy features of the bluenette and dropped his other hand to on top of the other male’s knees.

 

“Haa… Aka— Mhm…” half-moaned Kuroko in between locked lips and entwined tongues. He released the wrists of the redhead momentarily and then lunged his hands forward once again, circling the taller male’s neck and clutching at his back.

 

Opening one of his eyes, Akashi looked down as he slowly dropped the hand resting on top of his knees to in between the bluenette’s thighs, softly rustling his fingers through the fabric of the pants. “Kuroko… I’m going to go off my rocker if I don’t touch you right now. Can I? A nod is as good as a wink.”

 

“Haa… Akashi… kun… I…” panted Kuroko, gripping more strongly at the redhead’s clothes. He motioned his head forward and stopped it just a fraction away from the other male’s. “I can’t… take it…anym…”

 

Not having even enough time to finish his sentence, Kuroko’s body slumped down backwards and Akashi hurriedly lunged his hands forward to grab the bluenette’s body before he hit his head on the floor. The taller male pulled his body back up to a sitting position and let his face rest against his chest.

 

Akashi released an exasperated sigh and shifted his body slightly so he could put the unconscious bluenette closer to his body.

 

 _What exactly did I expect to happen?,_ inwardly pointed out the redhead, running his fingers through his hair. _Kuroko was never known to have a lot of stamina. It seems his sex drive isn’t exactly included in it but his body’s tolerance to it does match with that little characteristic of his._

 

Akashi put his arms around the bluenette’s inert body and picked him up, carrying him close to his chest as he exited the bathroom. After he walked a little bit down the path that connected the bathrooms to the counter, Kagami readily noticed them coming out of there.

 

“W-W-What happened!?” yelped Kagami in panic as soon as he came to a halt in front of them, switching his worried eyes between the sleeping bluenette and the redhead carrying him.

 

“Close but no cigar,” simply said Akashi while passing by the taller redhead. 

 

“H-Huh?” interjected Kagami while he observed the smaller male carrying the bluenette to the entrance of the store. He had no idea what that meant, but if Akashi was still talking through idioms… then he also had no idea what happened inside of the bathroom.

 

“Oh my God! Tetsu-chan!!” yelped Aomine in surprise when he saw Akashi and Kuroko after their long period of going MIA in the bathroom. He got up from the table right away, accompanied by the pink haired girl, who seemed just as worried as he was. “What happened?”

 

“Is Tetsu-kun okay?” asked Momoi as soon as she stopped in front of the redhead, scanning with her pink eyes the still flushed features of the bluenette. “Is it because of his curse?”

 

“He’s fine,” explained Akashi, pulling the smaller male’s body closer to his own so he could hide better his not-all-that-appropriate current semblance. Well, not appropriate for the others to see, that is. “I’ll keep an eye on him and take him back home. Could you…”

 

“Yes, I’ll go call you a taxi, Akashi-kun,” acknowledged Momoi, turning around on her heels and returning back to the table to go make the phone call, as well as gather the belongings of the two males.

 

“Is he really, truly okay?” asked once again Aomine, his body shifting uncomfortably just the slightest as he looked over to the redhead.

 

“Yes,” acknowledged Akashi with a quick nod of his head and a small smile on his lips. “Tetsuya will be back to his own feet in the blink of an eye.”

 

Aomine sighed in relieve. Even though he didn’t really understand what Akashi fully meant with those words, he seemed much more relaxed now than when he went to the bathroom after Kuroko. “Hm? …Eh? ‘Tetsuya’…?”

 

When Akashi noticed the tanned male intently looking at his face, he tilted his head slightly in incomprehension. “Is something the matter, Aomine?”

 

“Ah… No! Nothing at all~” happily answered the tanned male. He probably had misheard Akashi speaking earlier. He didn’t address any of them by their first names anymore, not after the original Akashi had returned. His eyes were also of the same colour. So yes. He misheard him earlier.

 

“Akashi-kun, there’s a taxi close by so the driver asked if you can wait in front of the café for him,” suddenly announced Momoi from the table. She picked up both the bluenette’s and redhead’s coats and bags and walked over to Akashi once again.

 

“I’ll help you carry it,” offered Kagami right away, throwing a quick glance at the smaller redhead while motioning his hands forward to grab the two males’ belongings.

 

“Everyone… break a leg,” finally announced Akashi as he walked over in the front door’s direction, giving a quick smile to those who would still remain there. He readily stepped outside, still holding tightly at the bluenette and halted his movements in front of the shop, on an easily seen place.

 

“You have figured out Kuroko’s curse, haven’t you?” asked Kagami the moment he stopped beside the smaller redhead.

 

“Yes,” shortly acknowledged Akashi, staring to the cars passing by. “He’s in for a lot of trouble but I’ll pull the plug. He simply has to spill the beans to whoever he’s in love with, right?”

 

“Yeah, but the one he’s in love with is—“ Kagami suddenly interrupted his own words. He could very easily tell Akashi that the one the bluenette was in love with was him. But he had no idea if doing such would affect the curse in any way. Kuroko had already a lot to deal with his current predicament, so it would be wiser to remain silent about it.

 

A taxi was all of a sudden parked near their location and both redheads started to walk in its direction. Kagami opened the door and put the two smaller males’ belongings inside, letting afterwards Akashi put Kuroko there and then step in himself while he gave the address of the bluenette to the driver.

 

“Kagami,” called Akashi out of the blue as he was closing the door. He motioned his hand up and put his index finger in front of his smirking lips. “Mum’s the word.”

 

“Eh?” interjected Kagami right away, completely lost on that last sentence. He observed the taxi leave and then he himself went right back to the inside of the café. Scratching his head as he walked, he stopped in front of the table and dropped his body once again in his seat. “Hey. What does it mean ‘mum’s the word’?”

 

“I think it means to keep quiet about something,” answered Midorima, adjusting his glasses.

 

“Ah…” acknowledged Kagami, crossing his arms over his chest as he interiorized that information. “Akashi is seriously one scary dude.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

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	8. The Beginning of the Tiring and Troublesome Days

“Well, other than finding a way to take Murasakibaracchi back to Akita, then I think we have most of everything set and explained,” pointed out Kise while giving a quick slurp to the drink that he went to get meanwhile.

 

“Why don’t we ask Tatsuya to come to get him?” said Kagami, while peering down to the purple haired male. “He already knows where I live. So you can stay in my apartment until that happens, Murasakibara.”

 

“Geh… I don’t really like that idea…” mumbled Murasakibara under his breath while he looked with a suspicious look to the redhead. It wasn’t the idea of going to Kagami’s apartment that was bothering him… it was the fact that Himuro would have to go there to take him to Akita once again.

 

“I don’t really see any other option, Murasakibara-tan,” pointed out Aomine, giving soft pats to the purple haired male’s head with his finger. “Do you want more sweets~? Or snacks~? I can go get them for you if you want to eat more~”

 

“You are totally thinking of me as a cute pet, aren’t you, Mine-chin?” grudgingly said Murasakibara, glaring to the tanned male with his petite purple eyes.

 

“Of course not~!” defended himself Aomine right away. He looked to the others sitting in the table, who were looking right back at him with a disbelieving expression, and then puffed his cheeks. “Okay, so I am! But he’s so cute right now!! I can’t resist feeding him when he looks like a little squirrel while eating~ It’s just… so kyuuuute<3”

 

Hearing the tanned male squealing like a girl while clutching at his face and shaking his body left and right, all of those present in the table felt a shudder crawl up their spines. It was extremely creepy to see a muscle-head like Aomine act in such a girly way.

 

“A~ny~way~ I think I will go get another cake for me~” happily announced Aomine as he picked up his used plate and cutlery. He got up from his seat, but the knife started to slide down from the plate and fell on top of the table. However, the moment the metal tableware fell on the wooden surface, it bounced up in the air once again and came flashing in the green-haired male’s direction.

 

“…!” Midorima didn’t even have time to react. He saw from the corner of his eyes as the knife passed just a few millimetres away from his head and was stabbed in the wall behind him. He motioned his trembling hand up and adjusted his glasses. “I-I think it’s time for me to return home, close myself in my room and not come out of there ever again. For safety reasons, of course.”

 

“W-Will you even be able to return safely home, Midorin?” asked Momoi, completely shocked over what just happened right in front of her eyes… for the fifth time since the green-haired male arrived at the café. It appeared that Midorima’s curse was the most life-threatening one out of all of them. Well, probably, since she didn’t know what happened to Kuroko nor what type of curse he had.

 

“I have to,” acknowledged Midorima, dropping his hand down and gathering his things to leave. “School starts once again tomorrow, so I obviously can't stay closed in my room forever. However, if I want to survive, I will need to make preparations for every single eventuality that I may face until I… well, you know what I have to do! So until that time, I just have to keep on living, in a way.”

 

“That sounds hard…” confessed Aomine, feeling a tinge of pity for the taller male. Then he smiled brightly to all of those who were in the table. “I’m so lucky that I haven’t been affected in a weird way, like all of you were~”

 

“Right…” deadpanned both Kagami and Kise, rolling their eyes slightly at the tanned male’s words. The personality shift had occurred in such a way that Aomine simply didn’t remember nor recognized how his true personality truly was.

 

“Anyway, I wish you all good luck on… confessing,” finally said Midorima while getting up from his seat. He readily started to walk to the counter to pay for the things he had eaten.

 

“Ah, Midorin! Wait a sec!” Momoi suddenly got up from her seat too and started to follow after the green-haired male. She was so worried about Midorima’s current extremely life-threatening bad luck that she was going to volunteer herself to go partly home with him (Aomine obviously going along with them, since she just couldn’t leave him to his own devices at the moment).

 

“Hey, Kagami-chan!” suddenly called Aomine, skirting around in the table and sitting in the chair next to the redhead. He stared intently to the other male and then shyly dropped his eyes once again, playing with his fingers in an embarrassed motion. “You… You know what Tetsu-chan’s curse is, don’t you?”

 

“Eh?” interjected Kagami, looking over to the tanned male with slight surprise. “Ah… um… well…”

 

“What exactly is wrong with him? Is it something like Midorima-tan? Something life-threatening?” started questioning Aomine, tugging at the sleeves of the redhead’s clothes. “I’m really worried about him. He closed himself in the bathroom for a looooooong time and then when he came out, he was in such a state! So… what’s Tetsu-chan’s curse?”

 

“Yes, I’m also worried,” added Kise, looking with serious eyes to Kagami.

 

“…” Kagami suddenly felt an extremely painful grip on his chest as he observed the worry in the tanned male’s expression. Was it possible that the male Aomine was crushing on right now was…?

 

Aomine and Kuroko used to have a 'light-shadow' relationship during their middle school years. After Seirin defeated Touou, Aomine had helped Kuroko develop his shooting form. All three of them also met up from time to time to talk and hang out and he also knew that, every so often, Aomine and Kuroko met in the basketball court of that area to play some friendly games just the two of them.

 

So… was Aomine in love with Kuroko?

 

“I-I know of Kuroko’s curse but Akashi t-told me to not tell anyone about it,” finally answered Kagami, gulping down hard. He was probably swallowing down the fact that, for a brief second after he realized who the tanned male’s crush was, he wanted to tell them the embarrassing curse of the bluenette. And that was something that he would not do to his friend and teammate, no matter how much he was hurting right now.

 

“Eh~ Isn’t that unfair?” complained Kise right away, crossing his arms over his chest in a sulking motion. “Kurokocchi knows about our curses. Why can’t we know what is his?”

 

“I think it’s better if you don’t know,” added Kagami, averting the worried eyes of the tanned male.

 

“Is it really bad?” asked Aomine, giving one more squeeze to the redhead’s sleeve. “For Akashi-tan to ask you to keep it a secret… is it something really that bad?”

 

“I-It’s not bad per se, but… But I don’t think Kuroko would feel really comfortable about you knowing about his curse,” explained Kagami, one more stab being felt in his heart. “And I have a feeling that Akashi doesn’t want you to know about it for the exact same reason. And possibly because of _other_ reasons…”

 

“I see…” softly acknowledged Aomine, releasing the other male’s clothes. “So Tetsu-chan really won’t be under the risk of dying because of his curse?”

 

“He won’t. So you don’t have to worry about him in that regard,” answered Kagami, nodding his head while not looking directly to the tanned male.

 

“So Kurokocchi’s curse is so embarrassing that he went into hiding in the bathroom and then… passed out because Akashicchi found out?” amusingly said Kise, playing with the straw on his drink. “Now I’m reeeeeeally curious about it~ Maybe I’ll try to meet up with Kurokocchi on a later time, so I can see him with the curse~”

 

 _I don’t think you will notice anything weird on him if Akashi’s not around, though,_ pointed out Kagami in the back of his mind, rolling his eyes slightly at the malevolence of the blonde in regards to teasing others.

 

“But well~ For now, I should deal with my own curse,” continued Kise, straightening his back on his seat and taking his cell phone out of his pocket. “First of all, I should warn my modeling agent that I won’t be able to work for the meantime. And then find an excuse good enough to force a meeting with Kasam— Umm, with my crush so I can confess to them. So, I’ll be taking my leave now~”

 

Humming a song, Kise got up from his seat and put the cell phone back in his pocket. He straightened his jacket, so he could certify himself that his ears and tail were still very well hidden and then picked up the rest of his belonging.

 

“Midorimacchi, Momocchi! I’m leaving~ Good luck with everything!” yelled Kise while opening the front door of the café. “Try not to get killed before you confess to your crush, Midorimacchi~”

 

“Shut up, Kise!” resounded the angry voice of the green haired male from the counter area.

 

Kise simply snickered at the response and then gave a quick wave to the table where Kagami, Aomine and Murasakibara were still sitting on before fully exiting the shop.

 

“I don’t think he has realized that all of us already know that his crush is that senpai of his that graduated this year…” said Murasakibara as soon as the front door fully closed, rubbing his tired eyes with his tiny hands.

 

“It’s probably because he only realizes the things his mouth is saying at the last minute and then tries to correct himself in a completely obvious way,” pointed out Kagami, shrugging his shoulders. “And I should be leaving too. Will you come or not, Murasakibara?”

 

“Ugh… I don’t really have any other choice, do I?” complained the purple haired giant, getting up from his sitting position. “I don’t want to be shipped to Akita inside of a box.”

 

“Ehhh~!? Murasakibara-tan will get to go to Kagami-chan’s apartment again!?” shrieked Aomine all of a sudden, slamming his hands on the table. “I also want to go!!! I want to go! I want to go!”

 

“Ah… um… Maybe after the curse is broken you can come to my house too, Aomine,” interrupted Kagami, picking up the purple haired male by the back of his clothes and putting him on the front pocket of his clothes.

 

“Really!? You promise?” asked Aomine while putting his face extremely close to the redhead’s, his eyes sparkling with anticipation.

 

“Ah… Y-Yeah, sure…” acknowledged Kagami, averting once again the eyes of the tanned male.

 

“Yay! You’re the best, Kagami-chan<3” celebrated Aomine, throwing himself to the redhead and wrapping his strong arms around him in a tight embrace. When he released Kagami a little bit and looked over to his face, he saw an unusual red colouring present in his features. “Is something the matter, Kagami-chan? Your face is suuuuuper re—“

 

“Hellooo? I’m here in the pocket… and you’re currently squeezing me to death…” complained Murasakibara’s muffled voice.

 

“…!” Kagami lunged his arms forward and grabbed the upper arms of the tanned male, pushing him away in a quick motion. “S-Sorry, Murasakibara.”

 

“My bad, Murasakibara-tan~ I forgot you were there since you’re so tiny right now~” apologized Aomine in a happy-go-lucky tone of voice.

 

Wiggling his body, Murasakibara popped his head out of the pocket and glared at the tanned male. “You don’t need to point out my height at the moment, Mine-chin. I’m starting to develop a complex with small and cute things because of you.”

 

“You are? Why?” asked Aomine, tilting his head slightly as he peered down to the purple haired male. He motioned his hand forward and started rubbing the small cheek of the tiny male. “You are just so cute~ and adorable~ and petite~ I don’t think you will have any trouble with confessing to your crush with your current appearance~ Everybody would be delighted to hear a confession from such a cute lil’ thing<3”

 

“Kagami, let’s quickly go to your apartment and call Muro-chin,” sighed Murasakibara, wiggling back to the inside of the pocket. “I feel that if I spend any more time together with Mine-chin, I will search for ways to make his love be impossible to realize as revenge over the things he’s saying.”

 

“You definitely don’t pull any punches, do you?” half-joked Kagami as he picked up his own things to leave.

 

“Oh? So everybody is really leaving already?” suddenly sounded the voice of the pink haired girl. She returned to the table together with Midorima, who had his arms crossed over his chest and a very frustrated expression on his face. “Then we should leave too. Dai-chan, are you ready?”

 

“I am~” happily acknowledged Aomine, grabbing his belongings. “Sat-chan, Sat-chan! Can we pass by the clothes store? Or a shoe store? Or buy more make-up? Or—“

 

“We’re going home,” strictly announced Momoi, starting to drag the tanned male by the arm to the door. “You already visited enough stores for the day before coming to the café. If Midorin is developing a phobia to go outside of his room and Mukkun an aversion to small and cute things, then I’m starting to get sick of shopping for clothes, shoes and accessories. At least if it will be done while accompanying you.”

 

“Eh~ You’re so mean, Sat-chan~” complained Aomine, crossing his arms over his chest and puffing his cheeks while being dragged to outside of the shop. “We only spent a few hours visiting different stores. Ah! Bye bye, Kagami-chan<3”

 

“Ah… see ya…” answered Kagami hesitantly, also waving his hand back to the once again cheerful tanned male. After Momoi, Aomine and Midorima left the shop, he released a tired sigh and started to walk to the counter to pay his bill.

 

_I have a feeling that these will be the most tiring and troublesome days of my whole life…_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mafy's Info:  
> [Twitter](https://twitter.com/Mafy_mod)  
> [Tumblr](http://mafymod.tumblr.com/)  
> [Ko-fi](https://ko-fi.com/I2I49KM4)  
> You can show your support for my fanfictions and help me achieve my goals of self-publication for original stories in Ko-fi! [UPDATE: Found an artist, character profile of M0 is up and M1 is coming out in a couple of hours!]


	9. Dream… NOT!

“Nnn…” Kuroko shifted his body against the soft cushion he was lying on and wrapped his body with the blanket around him, starting to slowly wake up. He covered his head with the blanket, popping it outside once again a few minutes later while opening one of his teal eyes. The light entering inside of his bedroom through the window told him that it was evening already.

 

He turned his body around and absentmindedly stared to the ceiling of his room. He just had the weirdest dream of his entire life. Something about all of them having gotten cursed by jelly beans and then having to confess to the person they were in love with. Kise had dog ears, Murasakibara had shrunken, Aomine was acting and talking like a girl, Midorima… well, he didn’t really manage to figure out what was wrong with him but he could remember that it was something along the lines of bad luck… Akashi was talking with idioms and he was…

 

“…Ngh… Oh my god… I’ll never stay in bed sleeping for more than necessary ever again,” mumbled Kuroko while burying his face on his pillow. Yes, that was definitely the most embarrassing dream he had ever had in his entire life. Dreaming about getting extremely turned on when meeting Akashi and then being kissed by him all of a sudden…

 

Blushing madly, the bluenette pulled the blankets from on top of him and stepped out of the bed. He was starting to walk to his bedroom’s door so he could apologize to his family for staying in bed all day when he noticed something strange. He wasn’t dressed in his sleeping wear. It was in normal outdoor clothes. _Did I forget to change when I went to bed last night?_

 

He thought closely about it but couldn’t really recall if he had changed after the gathering or not. He had been so tired about dealing with Aomine’s tries of teasing Kise with the photos and the endless loophole of arguing between all of them that sometimes popped up because of it that maybe he just went to bed without changing out of his clothes.

 

Opening the door, Kuroko put that subject out of his mind and exited his bedroom, motioning downstairs to the kitchen, where he could faintly hear someone cooking. His mother was most likely preparing dinner. When he stepped inside the kitchen area, his mother noticed his presence right away.

 

“Oh, Tetsuya. You’re finally awake, sweetie,” greeted his mother, turning around to face the bluenette slightly more while mixing the insides of a pan with a wooden spoon. “Are you feeling better now?”

 

“Eh? I’m feeling fine,” answered Kuroko, completely lost on the conversation. He had indeed sleep way more than it was usual for him, even taking into account that it was a weekend, but that didn’t explain the slight worry in his mother’s voice. “I apologize for sleeping for so long. Do you need help setting the table?”

 

“Don’t worry about it, Tetsuya,” said his mother, smiling softly at him. She took the spoon out of the pan and put the lid on top of it, fully turning around while fixing slightly her apron. “Have you called your friend to thank him for helping you?”

 

“Eh?”

 

“Earlier, when you went out to meet with your former teammates and Kagami-kun, Akashi-kun had to bring you home by taxi because you suddenly collapsed,” explained his mother, looking at the bluenette with worried teal eyes. “You should go call him to thank him for his help. And to tell him that you’re feeling better now. Akashi-kun was talking in a quite peculiar way but it was obvious that he was really worried about you. You should also tell your other friends that you are already feeling better, just in case they are worried about you.”

 

“Ah… Y-Yes, I will,” acknowledged Kuroko with a quick nod, slowly starting to walk backwards to the place where he had come from. “M-Maybe I should do it now, before dinner time. I don’t want to interrupt them while they are eating.”

 

“Of course, Tetsuya. Dinner will be ready in about an hour so please come downstairs by then,” said his mother, smiling to the bluenette in acknowledgement. When she saw her son disappear in the corridor, she added, “If you’re going to read, please set an alarm in your cell phone, or you’ll forget completely about dinner. Like it usually happens.”

 

“Okay,” answered Kuroko while quickly running up the stairs back to his bedroom. As soon as he reached the door, he entered inside of the room and hurriedly closed the door behind him, pressing his back strongly against it while covering the massive blush that his features housed.

 

 _Oh god, it wasn’t a dream!_ , inwardly screamed Kuroko as he let his body slump down to a sitting position on the floor, still clutching at his face. _I really got turned on by Akashi-kun and then m-masturbated in the bathroom of a café, only to get turned on by Akashi-kun once again and get k-k-kissed by him…!_

 

“I… I kissed Akashi-kun…” softly mumbled the bluenette, his blush intensifying by a tenfold. He took a deep breath and let his hands slide down from his face, allowing them to fall on top of his legs. “He has also realized what my curse is… He… Akashi-kun probably took pity on me and kissed me to help me out… How? Just how am I supposed to confess to him after all that…?”

 

He looked up to near his bed, where his things had been put on, and quickly got up and walked over to them. He searched around in his bag for his cell phone and took it out, where awaited him a bottomless list of missed calls from Aomine, Kise, Momoi, Kagami… and Akashi.

 

“…ugh…” grunted Kuroko, giving up halfway through the list and closing his cell phone.

 

What was he supposed to do now? How could he solve this problem? He couldn’t exactly avoid Akashi for the rest of his life. For once, the redhead wouldn’t allow it to happen and, even if he tried, Akashi would know right away that he was doing it. A nasty surprise could very well knock at his front door if such happened. So he desperately needed to find a way to confess without leaving any permanent damage to their friendship.

 

Because one thing was liking someone and confessing to that person. Another was literally going into heat like a rabbit whenever that person was around. If Akashi knew that the reason why he was _that_ aroused was because of him… he would most likely get disgusted by him.

 

So, Akashi returning to Kyoto was a blessing. The redhead would obviously need to return, seeing as the new school year would begin in the following day and, being the student council president of Rakuzan, as well as the captain of the basketball club, Akashi had to be present in the opening ceremony. That would give Kuroko time to formulate some sort of plan for this.

 

And for that… he needed information.

 

Kuroko once again opened his cell phone and started going through his contact list. Calling Momoi would usually be his first choice when searching for info on anything but he couldn’t ask for her help this time. She would start questioning him about what happened in the bathroom and he didn’t want her to know about _anything_ of what had occurred there. Aomine was also out of the question, with his current personality. The rest of them also wouldn’t be safe bets. All that was left was the other person who knew of his curse.

 

He dialled the number and put his cell phone on his ear, waiting for the call to connect. He didn’t even need to wait five seconds.

 

 _“Kuroko!”_ almost yelled Kagami from the other side of the device, causing the bluenette to put distance between the phone and his ear. _“Are you okay? What happened? Where are you right now? Did Akashi take you home or—“_

 

“Kagami-kun, please calm down,” interrupted Kuroko, heaving a soft sigh. The redhead could be such a worrywart at times. “I’m at my house. Where else would I be?”

 

 _“Ah, no, it’s just… It was Akashi who took you back home so I just… Never mind that! How are you feeling? And what the heck happened in the bathroom?”_ started explaining Kagami in a quite hesitant voice, but soon going back to his never-ending questions. _“I couldn’t prevent Akashi from going to the bathroom, sorry about that. But what happened for you to come out of there in his arms, unconscious?”_

 

“Please, Kagami-kun… Don’t ask about that…” embarrassingly answered Kuroko, hiding his face with his free hand. “Just… my brain sort of entered in short-circuit and my body crashed down with it. Think of it as simply that and don’t make any more questions about it. Please.”

 

 _“O-Okay… Also, Akashi knows about your curse,”_ informed Kagami, with an apologetical voice. _“While we were waiting for the taxi, I asked him if he knew and he… well, I didn’t understand half of what he said, but he said he figured out what type of curse it is. I’m not sure if he understands that it only works with him around or not, though.”_

 

“Yes, taking into account what happened in the bathroom, I already expected such,” sighed Kuroko, dropping his body in his bed. He must have slept for hours straight, but he was already starting to feel tired once again. “And you tried your best, Kagami-kun. Thank you very much for your help.”

 

 _“Don’t sweat it. You would do the same for any of us if we were in your situation, right?”_ said Kagami, his voice a little bit more chipper. _“Well, some of us are indeed in that situation, but in a different way.”_

 

“Yes, that’s true,” acknowledged Kuroko with a soft nod of his head. He lifted his body to a sitting position on the bed and looked down to the floor of his bedroom, not having any other place to look at the moment. “Kagami-kun, could you please explain better what’s happening right now? You told me in the bathroom that the curse would be broken if I confessed to Akashi-kun, but I don’t really understand why.”

 

 _“Momoi found on the Internet an article in a blog about superstitions and other types of weird phenomenon about a brand of American jelly beans said to have a very rare item,”_ started explaining Kagami. _“There it gave a little introduction of it but I don’t think that’s really what you want to hear about. It was written there that the jelly beans grant the deepest wish that a person has, which, in these jelly beans’ case, is achieving a successful relationship with the person you’re in love with. So you’ll be cursed until you confess.”_

 

“I see,” acknowledged Kuroko, motioning his hand up to chin as he closely thought about what the redhead had said. “Isn’t there any way of cheating the process?”

 

 _“Am I really talking with Kuroko Tetsuya right now?”_ teased Kagami while laughing. _“I wouldn’t expect that to be your first thought on how to solve all this crap.”_

 

“If you were in my position, you would immediately think like that, Kagami-kun,” deadpanned Kuroko, rolling slightly his eyes. “How do you exactly expect me to confess to Akashi-kun without resorting to cheating? If I see him or hear his voice, I instantly enter into… well, you know what I mean. So is there any other method that can be used to confess?”

 

 _“Oh, I see where you’re trying to get at. Like, a love letter or something?”_ added Kagami, perking up at the idea. If Kuroko didn’t have to directly confess to Akashi, the curse wouldn’t be able to affect him. _“I think that would be a good method for you. But I think you would have to be the one to give it to him.”_

 

“Eh? Why?” asked Kuroko, arching slightly an eyebrow in incomprehension.

 

 _“I don’t know… I just have this nagging feeling that if you use other people as go-betweens to break the curse, it will get worse or some shit like that,”_ explained Kagami, his voice a little bit heavier due to the worry he was feeling at that particular aspect. _“This is a curse, after all. I don’t think it will be something that easily solved, the way all of you have been ‘altered’ in some way.”_

 

“That makes sense,” acknowledged Kuroko with a quick nod. “I’m surprised you managed to think that up, Kagami-kun.”

 

 _“Hey! I’m not an idiot, okay? I can use my head from time to time!”_ roared Kagami, irked at what the bluenette was insinuating right now. _“Besides… remember that magical pencil that I used for the tests? It was because of it that I started thinking about your curses like that. When someone tries to mess up with that killer pencil, it backfires on them, right? So it can also happen to all of you.”_

 

“Yes, you did get to experience the wrath of Midorima-kun’s pencil at some point, didn’t you?” teased Kuroko, chuckling softly. “Right in your forehead.”

 

_“Shut up! I never expected that magical pencils really exist—“_

 

“Ah, please wait a second, Kagami-kun,” interrupted Kuroko all of a sudden, hearing his cell phone beeping softly against his ear, warning him that another call was being made to him at the moment. “Someone is trying to call me right now. Let me just quickly check who it is and warn them to call a little bit later.”

 

 _“Oh, okay,”_ acknowledged Kagami.

 

Kuroko took his phone from his ear and pressed the answer button, putting Kagami’s call on hold. “Yes, Kuroko Tetsuya speaking.”

 

 _“Kuroko, it’s Akashi,”_ sounded the smaller redhead’s voice from the other side of the device.

 

“…!” Feeling a wave of heat suddenly hit his insides, Kuroko clumsily ended the call with Akashi while almost slamming his free hand on his crotch, just so he could prevent any type of reaction to develop there again.

 

 _“Kuroko? Hey!”_ sounded the voice of Kagami from the cell phone. It seemed that when he had dropped the electric device on the bed, it had once again connected to the taller redhead’s call.

 

“K-Kagami-kun… I have… to go now…” said Kuroko after having picked up the phone with his trembling hands, his breathing already starting to get picked up due to having heard Akashi’s voice right on his ear.

 

 _“Okay…? Is something wrong?”_ asked Kagami in a hesitant tone. The bluenette could perfectly see that the redhead was arching an eyebrow at the moment.

 

“It’s nothing… Gh… I’ll see you… tomorrow at school… G-Goodbye,” hastily answered Kuroko, ending the call without waiting for a confirmation from Kagami. He let the cell phone slip from his hand and then dropped his body down to the bed once again, clutching at the untidy blankets. “Haa… If I get like this… with only hearing Akashi-kun’s… voice through the phone… Haa… I will never be able to… confess…”

 

As he tried to calm down both the heat in his body and his heavy breathing, his cell phone started to ring once again beside his head. He took a peek at it and exasperatedly sighed. Kuroko could imagine who was the person trying to call him right now very well. It could only be one person, actually.

 

So he just let it ring and ring, trying to think about something other than the redhead. Maybe he should try to think of something that made him feel sick. Like Riko’s and Momoi’s cooking. The last dish Seirin’s coach had tried to cook for them had almost been fatal for some of the basketball members. The bluenette could only congratulate their captain, Hyuuga Junpei, for being brave enough (or too weak to the brunette’s puppy eyes) to actually ask for seconds.

 

After his phone rang non-stop for minutes, the room finally was invaded by silence. Maybe Akashi had decided to make a small pause. Though Kuroko knew that he would soon begin once again with his persistent tries to get to talk with him since he knew that the bluenette was awake already. His phone gave one more ring, but this time it wasn’t a call… it was a text.

 

“…ugh…” Extremely reluctantly, Kuroko motioned his hands to the phone and checked his inbox. The name of the sender was obviously Akashi.

 

_[I’ll be in your doorstep in 3 hours. A drowning man will clutch at a straw so pick up, Kuroko.]_

 

“Why is it that Akashi-kun… likes to torment others, I wonder…” softly mumbled Kuroko while burying his face on his bed. The next time the phone would ring, he had to pick up the call. If he didn’t, the redhead really would show up at his house. And then Hell would break loose.

 

The phone started to ring in his hand. Kuroko released a shaky breath and pressed the answer button, putting the cell phone on his ear with trembling hands.

 

“H-Hello?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

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	10. Like a Moth to the Flame

“H-Hello?” hesitantly greeted Kuroko, strongly clutching at the sheets underneath his body. He needed to make this phone call the shortest possible since he had absolutely no idea how powerful the effects of the curse would be while talking on the phone with the redhead.

 

 _“It was about time for you to pick up, Kuroko,”_   readily said Akashi, a slight tone of annoyance in his voice.

 

“Ngh… I’m s-sorry, but I…” apologized Kuroko, his whole body starting to heat up and shiver just the slightest. It seemed that it was easier to take it if it was only the redhead’s voice that he heard – but it didn’t change the fact that he was already burning with desire. “I-I’m feeling fine already. Thank you for taking me home.”

 

 _“I see. I’ll be able to breathe easily again, then,”_ acknowledged Akashi, releasing a soft sigh.

 

“Um… I-I’ll be going now. I have to go have dinner,” announced Kuroko, trying to regulate his already pitched breathing. It was only an excuse since he still didn’t have to go downstairs to eat the said dinner, but it was something that the taller male would not read as one, taking the hour of the day into account. “H-Have a nice rest of day.”

 

 _“Wait, Kuroko,”_ suddenly said Akashi, stopping the bluenette as he was about to press the end call button.

 

“Ngh…!” Kuroko hurriedly motioned his free hand up and clutched his mouth shut, trying to muffle the moan that was almost released at the sound of the redhead’s voice calling his name. He took a few shaky deep breathes and departed his trembling hand from his mouth, gulping down hard. “W-What is it? Do you n-need something, Akashi…kun…?”

 

 _“No. I just wanted to make an acid test but…”_ started explaining Akashi, a small tone of amusement in his voice. _“I think I already got the answer to what I was searching for.”_

 

“I-I see. Good for you. Now I have to hang up,” hurriedly acknowledged Kuroko, the temperature on his body escalating more and more. He could no longer focus on the conversation and all his attention was drifting to the throbbing and tightness he felt in his crotch area.

 

 _“I’m willing to bend over backwards, Kuroko,”_ suddenly said Akashi, preventing the bluenette from ending the call one more time.

 

“Haa… haa…” Panting heavily, Kuroko did his very best to focus on the conversation enough for him to find a way to simply end it. His body trembling with unfulfilled desire, he let himself fall back to the bed and clutched at the sheets with his free hand. The bluenette gulped down hard and feebly opened his mouth once again to speak. “What do you mean… by that?”

 

 _“Your curse is an accident waiting to happen,”_ elaborated Akashi, his voice softening a few decibels. _“You can’t exactly make of it a hot potato and you will probably be glad to see the back of the person you’re crushing on so they don’t find about it. So right now you’re caught between two stools and I want you to choose one.”_

 

“I-I’m not really following what you’re saying, Akashi-kun…” interrupted Kuroko, his panting escalating by the second as he continuously listened to the voice of the redhead. “What is it… haa… that I have to choose?”

 

 _“I’ll make the long story short, then,”_ sighed Akashi. He softly cleared his throat and continued explaining, _“A little of what you fancy does you good so accept this offer and let me act as your guinea pig until you ask your crush out.”_

 

“W-What…?” interjected Kuroko almost instantly, feeling his face ignite on fire with what the redhead was suggesting right now. An even stronger wave of arousal motioned at full speed to his crotch and he shifted his body against the mattress of his bed, desperately trying to still the shivering. “I-I can’t do something like that! I—“

 

 _“But Kuroko... You were pleased as Punch when I kissed you, right?”_ pointed out Akashi, the tone of his voice hinting a smirk on his face.

 

“Ngh…!” Once again, Kuroko released the sheets he was gripping at and lunged his hand forward, clutching at his mouth to prevent a moan from escaping his throat. He desperately needed to end his phone call. He was already beginning to stray from rationality and the redhead was only making it once with the things he was saying. “Haa… E-Enough… with this conversation…”

 

 _“But it did, didn’t it?”_ proceeded Akashi, chuckling softly. _“You know what would thrill you to bits? The person you’re crushing on pinning you down. Even if they are a girl, I can see her being able to do it blindfolded. After all, you would be too turned on to fight it off.”_

 

“Haa… Stop… saying things like that… Ngh!” feebly complained Kuroko, sinking the back of his head further in the pillow. When the redhead started talking once again, he painfully bit into his lower lip to stop any sound from being freed and heard from the other side of the phone.

 

 _“They would pin you down against your will, without any consideration to those who might arrive on the scene, and then kiss you, exactly like I did,”_ continued Akashi, his smirk widening as he heard the heavy breathing of the bluenette.

 

“Ngh… Haa… Akashi-kun, please stop already…” complained Kuroko, turning his body sideways to more easily grip into the messy sheets underneath his feverish body.

 

_“Then they would run their tongue down your neck, covering your as pale as a ghost skin with bright red marks.”_

 

“Ahh—“ As the other male continued putting that straight out fantasy into words, Kuroko unconsciously released the blankets and motioned his hand to his neck, lightly tracing the length of his neck until he reached his collar bones. The temperature of his body only rose even more with it. “Akas— Stop…”

 

 _“They would take your clothes off as slow as molasses, painfully so, and your perverted body would get even hotter and bothered with your desperate need to have your fill of pleasure,”_ added Akashi, his smirk growing more sly as he heard the bluenette desperately trying to control his mewls of arousal and feebly pleading him to stop. _“They would try to find your Achilles’ heel as they licked your body, acquiring a taste for the salt of your sweat and the sweetness of your eroticism. Going down… and down… and down.”_

 

“Haa… Ngh… Haa…” Once again, Kuroko involuntarily slid his hand down from his collar bone, rustling it through his clothes as he got closer and closer to his crotch. He had fallen completely. He could no longer resist the immeasurable need to find relief. And it was all Akashi’s fault. It was his and the words he was sensually purring to his ear’s fault.

 

_“Tetsuya…”_

 

“Ahhh—!” The bluenette’s body strongly shook at the call of his first name and he loudly moaned at it. Closing his eyes tightly and biting into the fabric of his pillow, as to prevent his voice to once again break free and possibly be heard by his family, Kuroko stopped the motions of his hand on top of his erection, feeling the heat that had pooled down in that area with his sweaty fingers.

 

 _“That’s how they would call you as they continued getting ahead of the game with their ministrations on your body, not even an inch left untouched. Then they would spread your legs and fully expose your hard, twitching cock,”_ proceeded Akashi, slowly licking his lips as he started to hear clothes softly rustling from the other side of the phone call. _“Ah, but if it is a girl, it would go slightly different from here on out. However… it’s as plain as the nose on one’s face that you aren’t attracted to a girl, right?”_

 

“Ngh… Haa… Ha…” softly whimpered Kuroko as his hand worked its way to the insides of his pants. He was hearing the redhead’s voice, but he wasn’t truly listening to it. He was so immersed in the things being told to him that he had been stripped of his reason completely and fully succumbed to his curse and the strong wave of arousal that it was causing in his body.

 

 _“As a matter of fact, it’s a male. So let’s put on them a face and a name on at random. I think it would be as crooked as a dog’s hind leg to use another person as an example so I’ll allow you to use me in this simulation,”_ explained Akashi, trying to suppress a mischievous giggle as he understood that he had finally achieved what he was searching for with this whole conversation. _“After I did all of that and made you become a panting mess, I would slowly start to feast on your cock and tell you to not cum until I said you could. But you would be at the end of your rope and cum anyways, splattering your sticky honey all over the place. Of course, I would be forced to give you a slap on the wrist over it.”_

 

“Ahh— Ngh…” half moaned Kuroko as he pumped his hard-on with his free hand while the other one strongly pressed the cell phone to his ear. He wanted to hear more of the redhead’s voice. He wanted him to kiss him again and touch him. He wanted all that but… “Haa… Akashi…kun… Stop… Ngh…”

 

 _“Yes, that’s exactly what you would say. But I’ll leave the slap on the wrist to your imagination,”_ answered Akashi, chuckling slyly at the bluenette’s moans. _“Then I would use my fingers to stretch your small entrance, aiming at the spot that makes you writhe in ecstasy.”_

 

“Haa… Ngh!” Panting heavily and with his lips parted to try to gulp down more air to his overheated body, Kuroko felt his body throbbing with curiosity and expectation. How would he truly feel if the redhead did all of that to him?

 

 _“As soon as you got fully prepared, I would put my cock in there, thrusting inside right to hilt in one go,”_ proceeded Akashi, licking his lips at such a prospect. He could easily understand just how turned on the bluenette currently was, by the unusual eroticism in the voice of a male that was usually as expressionless as a wall, and that was contaminating him, making his body react in the exact same way as the smaller male. _“And what would you scream when that happened?”_

 

“Haa… Ak… Akashi…kun… Ahhh—“ Calling the redhead’s name at this point came as the last drop. Kuroko hastened the movements of his hand as he felt his release growing closer and closer. He would most likely never be able to look Akashi in the eyes again if he really did climax while talking with him on the phone… but it wasn’t like he had any other option at the moment. He had, actually. He could end the call whenever he wanted. But he _didn’t_ want it to end. “Akashi…kun… Ngh…!”

 

 _“That’s right. You’ll scream my name and beg that I start to move because you just can’t take it anymore,”_ acknowledged Akashi, feeling his own arousal becoming more prominent on his pants as he heard the heavenly purrs of his name. _“As soon as I start to do it, you will cum right away. You just can’t hold it in anymore but you’ll get hard once again, with me thrusting non-stop into you and hitting your sweet spot all the livelong day.”_

 

“Ah… Akashi-kun… Haa… Ngh…” Kuroko tightly closed his eyes and let his body be overcome with the tingling sensation of his climax bursting forward, moaning unrestrictedly as it happened. “Ahhh—!”

 

 _“Have you acted according to Hoyle and cum, Kuroko?”_ slyly asked Akashi. When he heard no answer whatsoever to it except the sound of the bluenette’s irregular breathing, he immediately knew that he had. _“Does it turn you on even more the thought of how I would make love to you?”_

 

“Haa… Aka… Haa… Akashi-kun…” softly whispered Kuroko, as he tried to recover from the afterglow of having had climaxed under such circumstances.

 

_“Hm? What is it?”_

 

“You’re… awful… Doing this to me…” grudgingly hissed Kuroko with a slow and tired voice. He really would like to have better stamina, even if only to angrily admonish Akashi right now.

 

 _“I have no intention of being awful, Kuroko. However, you gave me the cold shoulder and are trying to avoid me like the plague so at least allow me to slap your wrist a little bit,”_ argued back Akashi. He stayed silent for some seconds and then cleared his throat. _“But what a pity. Time is over.”_

 

“…Eh?” unintentionally interjected Kuroko, his breathing had calmed down a little bit. It would be a good thing if the conversation ended here since he didn’t know for how long he would be able to maintain his body in check. But even so…

 

 _“I have some business to attend so if you want to continue, you’ll have to do it all by yourself,”_ continued Akashi, chuckling softly. A mischievous smirk immediately popped up at his next words. _“But do thoroughly enjoy the little scenario that I set for you. If you need help once again, I’m all for getting you all fired up again. Have a good night, Kuroko.”_

 

“Ah…” Before Kuroko could speak once again, the call ended. He released an exasperated sigh and dropped the cell phone in the mattress of the bed. Slowly, the bluenette lifted his other hand and peered at it, a bright red blush appearing in his features as he saw the sticky white cream covering most of the skin of his hand. “Ugh… I need a shower. That and to suddenly develop a case of amnesia.”

 

-.-

 

Akashi got up from the sofa where he had installed himself while talking on the phone with Kuroko and walked over to the big window of that room. He stared away to the distance, a smirk on his features as he softly bumped his cell phone on his lips.

 

“It seems that this will be easier than I expected. I will have to offer my thanks to both Murasakibara and Himuro-san for unknowingly providing me such a wonderful opportunity. But before that…” Akashi let the hand that was holding onto the cell phone drop to the sides of his body and walked over to the small round table located next to the sofa. He grabbed a piece of paper that had been put there by one of the servants of his household and dialled the number written there. He waited for a couple of seconds and when the call connected, he couldn’t help but smirk at it. “Good evening. Akashi Seijuurou speaking. I would like to talk with Aida Riko-san.”

 

_My dear Tetsuya, you’re mine now._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mafy's Info:  
> [Twitter](https://twitter.com/Mafy_mod)  
> [Tumblr](http://mafymod.tumblr.com/)  
> [Ko-fi](https://ko-fi.com/I2I49KM4)  
> You can show your support for my fanfictions and help me achieve my goals of self-publication for original stories in Ko-fi! [UPDATE: Found an artist, character profile of M0 is up and M1 is coming out in a couple of hours!]


	11. Preparing for Checkmate

A big mountain of food in a plate, Kagami took his dinner to the table, where a tiny purple haired male was sitting on, busy munching on a cookie with a sour look on his face. He sighed as he put down the plate on the surface and motioned a chair back to sit there. “You’re still sulking over the fact that Tatsuya will only be able to get here tomorrow?”

 

“Just leave me alone already,” barked Murasakibara’s tiny voice, turning his back to the redhead as he took a big mouthful of the chocolate chips cookie. “Why is Akita so far away from Tokyo in the first place? Even if it was Aka-chin who asked me to come, I shouldn’t have. Then I wouldn’t be in this mess!”

 

“None of you would be, actually,” pointed out Kagami as he delightfully chewed his food. “You were the one who brought the jelly beans to the gathering, right?”

 

“If you are going to start to shift the blame to someone, then shift it to Muro-chin’s parents, since they were the ones who sent him all those jelly bean packages from America in the first place,” grudgingly said Murasakibara, but a disgusted expression soon popped up in his face at the thought of the enormous quantity of jelly beans he had eaten due to it. “But I don’t really care about that right now. I just want to return to Akita and break this curse the soonest I can.”

 

“Then the person you’re crushing on is from Akita?” asked Kagami, looking down to his plate as he gathered more food on his chopsticks to eat.

 

“They aren’t from Akita but they are currently there,” answered Murasakibara, munching on his cookie once again. The person he was currently crushing on was actually the person who would come to get him tomorrow to take him back to Akita but he wouldn’t say that out loud. Not to Kagami. “But that doesn’t have anything to do with you, does it?”

 

Kagami immediately felt a vein pop out on his forehead at the purple haired male’s words and he angrily banged his fist on the table while motioning his chopsticks down from his mouth. “Hey! Who’s the one that got dragged to this mess even while not having anything to do with it!? Who’s the one that took you home and is giving you food and a place to sleep!? HUH!? You should be a little bit more grateful to me, you asshole!”

 

“I only came with you because Muro-chin knows where your apartment is,” groaned Murasakibara, a sour look once again appearing on his features. “If I could have chosen any other person, I would have gone with them instead.”

 

“Oh… I sure am starting to agree with Kise…” mumbled Kagami as he stuffed more food on his mouth and vigorously chewed it, his foot tapping on the floor with how irked he felt at the moment. “We really should have put you on a box and shipped you to Akita. Without any food or water or any protective filling inside…!”

 

“Don’t worry, I’m starting to regret it myself not having accepted Kise-chin’s suggestion,” also mumbled Murasakibara, turning his back even more to the redhead while quickly munching on the cookie. In between bites, he softly mumbled in an almost inaudible voice, “I want Muro-chin to come to get me but I don’t want him to meet Kagami… That’s why I’m so angry at the moment!”

 

-.-

 

“Ahh… I’m tired~” sighed Kise as he dropped his body down to his bed. After a few seconds had passed, he got up to a sitting position and started undressing the hot and stuffy jacket that he had been using pretty much all day.

 

After his second meeting with his former teammates had ended and as he was going home while talking with his manager, he was forced to go to his agency headquarters before returning to his house, since the excuse of ‘I have dog’s ears and tail at the moment so I can’t do any work in the meantime’ just wasn’t cutting it. After also meeting with his manager and arranging everything to put his modelling job on hold, he could finally return to his house, the sun already well set and the moon high in the sky.

 

“Ugh… This is awful…” mumbled Kise as he saw his current appearance in the mirror of his bedroom. He got up from the bed and walked closer to it, a pair of golden ears on the top of his head and a tail jutting out from his pants. Even his canines felt sharper than before while inside of his mouth, every so often hurting his tongue while he spoke. “Why do I have to suffer like this…? Not only have I had an unrequited love for close to a year and now I have to confess to him while with this appearance… My life is too unfortunate for me to even be able to laugh at it!!!”

 

Kise turned his back to the mirror and quickly marched back to his bed, rumbling around through his jacket’s pockets as he searched for his cell phone. When he found the electronic device, he intently stared at it, gulping down hard as he gathered enough guts to make the phone call he had been avoiding during the whole day.

 

“O-Okay, I-I can do this,” reminded himself Kise, starting to fiddle through his contact list in search of a number in particular. “I’m a famous model, who has been confessed to by a lot of girls. So it should be easy for me to confess too, right? Yeah, it will be easy. I’m handsome, I’m super cool and I’m always surrounded by fans. Confessing to Senpai will be suuuuuuuper easy!!”

 

When the blonde found the number he was searching for, his thumb remained frozen in the air, not pressing the button that would start the call. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes tightly, pressing his finger down on the phone. Kise put the device on his ear (the human one) and impatiently waited for the call to connect.

 

 _“What is it, Kise?”_ suddenly sounded Kasamatsu Yukio’s voice from the other side of the cell phone.

 

“Ah! Senpai, good evening!” greeted Kise, a happy and satisfied smile popping up in his features. He looked down to his back and saw his tail also happily moving left and right, creating a tapping sound when it hit the mattress of his bed. The blonde quickly grabbed it and stuffed it underneath his rear. “U-Um, do you think we can meet tomorrow?”

 

 _“Tomorrow?”_ repeated Kasamatsu, his voice a little bit reluctant. _“I’m busy with the final preparations for college. I don’t have the time for that right now.”_

 

“O-Oh, is that so…” mumbled Kise, feeling the ears on top of his head suddenly getting totally down-casted. He softly cleared his throat and lifted his head slightly once again. “R-Right now, I’m having some troubles with… stuff. So I wanted to ask you some bits of advice on it. Actually… the troublesome mess I got involved on is so complicated that I had to cancel all of my modelling gigs for the time being.”

 

 _“What?”_ interjected Kasamatsu, his voice painted with surprise. _“What happened? Did you get hurt or something? Will you be able to go to the basketball practices or is that also impossible for you at the moment?”_

 

“I don’t know,” answered Kise, his mind full of hesitation at his next words. “But! I think that if we meet and I get to talk with you, Senpai, I will be able to solve everything and return to my daily life right away! The modelling and the basketball practices included! …Though I’ll probably isolate myself on my bed for the rest of the week afterwards… Anyway! When do you have the time to meet?”

 

 _“Ah… If it’s like that, I guess it can’t be helped…_ ” ended up conceding Kasamatsu, releasing a quick sigh. _“I think I can make a little bit of time for you tomorrow. Where do you want to meet?”_

 

“Can it be in Kaijou?” requested Kise almost instantly. Meeting in his high school would be the safest bet he could make since they could occupy an unused gym or classroom and the older male would be easily allowed inside – he was an alumnus of that school, after all. It also meant that he wouldn’t have to walk around in the street more than necessary while covered by jackets to hide his current appearance.

 

 _“I guess. But isn’t tomorrow the beginning of the school year?”_ asked Kasamatsu.

 

“It doesn’t matter! I want to solve this mess the quickest I can, Senpai!” blurted Kise, his voice a little bit panicky. “You’re probably going to laugh at how I currently am but it’s the only way out! Please come to Kaijou tomorrow! Please, please, please~!”

 

 _“Okay! I get it! Stop being so persistent and annoying on it!”_ yelled Kasamatsu, getting irked at the blonde’s insistence on the meeting. _“Why do I have such a needy kouhai, I wonder… I’ll be in front of the main gate after classes. Is that good enough for you?”_

 

“Thank you, Senpai~!” said Kise, his tail slipping from underneath his body and once again wagging around, this time in a much more frenetic motion. The blonde didn’t even seem to have noticed such. “I’ll see you tomorrow then. Good bye~!!!”

 

 _“Yeah, bye,”_ acknowledged Kasamatsu, pressing the end call button almost right away after saying that.

 

“YES! I DID IT!” loudly celebrated Kise, jumping out of his bed to a standing up position. “The second hardest challenge has been cleared! Now I need to work my way around the hardest one. Which is… confessing to Kasamatsu-senpai.”

 

-.-

 

With a muffled thud, Midorima dropped his school bag to on top of his bed. He clasped his hands against one another several times and nodded his head in approval to his hard work on its preparation – the school bag was probably five times heavier than usual, but he had quick fixes prepared to every single eventuality that he might suffer in the following day as he went to his classes. He had even studied the map of his area to choose the safest route to use to avoid unnecessary life-threatening situations until he reached the school grounds.

 

The plan wasn’t bulletproof since he didn’t really know what to expect of the magnitude of this curse but he was ready to fight for survival until the very end. And to end his disastrous curse, he would have to…

 

Midorima took a quick peek to his cell phone, which remained abandoned on top of his desk, and adjusted his glasses. He walked over in its direction and picked up the device, intently staring at it while holding it on his hand. He had yet to contact Takao Kazunari to warn him to not come to his house to pick him up on the rickshaw – having life-threatening bad luck was already hard to deal with while alone, he didn’t need the actual source of why he had been affected the curse to also be susceptible to worsen or get affected by it too.

 

Sighing deeply, Midorima started writing on his cell phone, pressing the send button for the text to be delivered to Takao. As he was lowering his cell phone back to the desk, the device beeped and vibrated with a new received text. Midorima could only roll his eyes at how quickly the smaller male had answered.

 

_Takao: What do you mean ‘Don’t bother coming to my house to pick me up in the near future’, Shin-chan~!! I don’t remember breaking any of your lucky items recently!!_

 

Midorima sighed while adjusting his glasses, a soft mumbling exiting his lips as he worked his way around his cell phone to write an answer to that text.

 

_Midorima: Just do what I’m telling you to do! I probably will have to somehow talk about it with you so leave me alone for now so I can think about it._

 

Midorima was about to put his cell phone back on the desk once again so he could give a final check to his very much packed school bag when the electronic device vibrated once again. “Ugh…!”

 

_Takao: Are you in some sort of trouble right now? If you need the super good advice of Takao Kazunari-sama, I’m all ears for what’s troubling our old lil’ Shin-chan~_

 

“This damn fool…” grumbled Midorima, preparing his fingers to type a reply to that message but before he could start writing it, a new text from the raven-haired male arrived.

 

_Takao: Now in all seriousness, if you’re really in some sort of a mess, you know you can count on my and our teammates’ support and help on it, right? That’s what it means to be a team, after all. Sweet dreams, Shin-chan~ (^_-)_

 

A soft smile on his features, Midorima wrote a final text for the smaller male and then finally was able to put the cell phone back on the surface of his desk, turning around so he could finish preparing to face Hell in the next day.

 

_Midorima: Good night. I’ll talk it over with you tomorrow but I highly doubt it will be the sort of trouble that you’re expecting to hear from me._

 

-.-

 

After having taken a shower and dressed her pyjamas, Momoi knocked on the tanned male’s bedroom’s door and stepped inside. When she closed the door and looked over to the tanned male’s bed, she found him hugging his pillow with an extremely sulking expression on his face, his body also clothed with his sleeping wear.

 

“What’s the matter, Dai-chan?” asked Momoi, still feeling a little bit awkward about having to address to her childhood friend as if he was a girl and not the over 190cm male he truly was. “I already told you that we could have a slumber party. I’m even already dressed on my pyjamas and everything!”

 

“But… But, Sat-chan!!” started whining Aomine, a dissatisfied look on his face as he looked over to the pink haired girl. “I asked you to have a bath with me and you said no! I wanted to wash your hair and for you to wash my hair and to talk with each other while we played with the foam~!!”

 

“Ah… R-Right… B-But I think I’ve gained a little bit of weight recently so I don’t feel comfortable with other people seeing me completely naked right now. You understand how I feel, don’t you?” hesitantly explained Momoi, a cold sweat covering her forehead at the painfully cringe-worthy image that had appeared in her brain due to Aomine’s previous request.

 

 _Please don’t traumatize me more than I already am, Dai-chan…!,_ begged Momoi in the back of her mind as she observed the tanned male puckering his lips while pouting.

 

“You don’t really seem to have gained any weight, though,” said Aomine, an extremely displeased tone in his voice.

 

“Anyways, Dai-chan…” started Momoi, trying to change the topic of the conversation to something more comfortable for her to talk about. Since she was going to stay for the night in Aomine’s house, she should use this opportunity to find a way to break the tanned male’s curse the quickest possible. So right now, she had set as her mission to find out who was the male that her childhood friend was currently crushing on… as incredulously as that may sound. “Since we are having a slumber party, we need to gossip!”

 

“Oh, gossips! I like the sound of that!” cheerfully added Aomine, his head immediately perking up at those words. “What do you want to gossip about, Sat-chan?”

 

“Hm… Why don’t we talk about our experiences with romance?” innocently asked Momoi while trying to suppress the mischievous smirk that wanted to pop up in her lips. “It’s such a shock to find out that Tetsu-kun is currently in love with someone… I just had my first heartbreak…”

 

“You should have had that heartbreak a long time ago, then…” mumbled Aomine under his breath while averting looking to the pink haired girl. Kuroko had been crushing on Akashi for years now, after all. He really had to wonder what sort of taste in men Kuroko had to fall for such a… messed up human being. “Don’t worry, Sat-chan! You’ll find the right person for you eventually! Everybody does~”

 

“That’s true!” cheerfully agreed Momoi, flashing a quick smile to the tanned male. “Then have you found the right person for you, Dai-chan?”

 

“…” Instead of answering, Aomine simply started to pull the pillow on his arms upwards, slowly covering his face with it.

 

“Oh, don’t be shy about it! It’s just the two of us right now, having a g-girls talk,” tried to reassure Momoi, feeling an incredible urge to slap herself over the things she had to say in order to communicate and make the tanned male spill the beans over who was the male he’s in love with. All for the sake of preventing Aomine from committing suicide like a samurai when the curse was broken. When she saw that the tanned male continued to silently hide his face on the pillow, she started to have an extremely bad feeling over it. “Um… Dai-chan? Is perhaps the person you are crushing on right now… Tetsu-kun?”

 

“What? Tetsu-chan?” repeated Aomine, his voice slightly muffled by the pillow. He very slowly started to pull the pillow back down and stared at the pink haired girl with a completely baffled expression on his features. “How could I think of my cute little former shadow like that? I admit that I think that he’s super adorable and our compatibility in basketball is the best of the best. I also like him veeeeeeeeeeeeeeeery much… but I don’t like him in the I-want-to-marry-you-and-have-cute-children-with-you sort of way.”

 

“Is that so?” sighed Momoi with relief. It was extremely awkward to hear the tanned male talk about the bluenette in such a fond and honest way, which was completely different from his usual way to talk about others, regardless of his proximity with them, but how happy she felt that she wouldn’t have to help her male childhood friend to confess to the person she had been in love with since middle school… “Then, who is it that you want to marry and have cute children with?”

 

Aomine quickly hid his face in the pillow once again, tightly hugging it. “…ami-chan…”

 

“Eh…?” interjected Momoi, her mouth gaping wide open. The tanned male’s voice had been very muffled, due to the pillow, but… did she really hear what she thought she did? “U-Um… Can you please repeat it?”

 

“It’s Kagami-chan, okay!?” yelled Aomine as he yanked the pillow out of his face, an extremely red blush on his tanned cheeks.

 

“K-Kagamin…? Eh? What? No way…” incredulously mumbled Momoi, her pink eyes also open wide in surprise. “I-I mean… You’re always arguing with each other… And you won against him in the Inter High only to lose afterwards in the Winter Cup. H-How come you’re… in love with him?”

 

“How should I know!?” yelped Aomine, a blush still present in his feature but less accentuated now that he had voiced out to someone else for the first time who he had been crushing on. “I like to argue with him! His food is really delicious, even if that annoys me to no end! He was the first person to actually win against me in basketball! And… And… For the love of god, have you seen his body!? I totally have the hots for all of those well-defined muscles~ Just the thought of it alone makes my body all—“

 

“Okay, I get it!” interrupted Momoi almost instantly, fearing that she would get to hear more than she actually wanted to know. She took a deep breath and started to let that information sink in her brain. “So have you found a way to confess to him already?”

 

“No, I don’t think I will ever confess to him,” denied Aomine, letting his body slump down to the bed sideways while holding the pillow close to his chest.

 

“Why not!? You need to break this curse the quickest you can!” yelped Momoi immediately, panic starting to invade her brain completely over hearing such a thing. She and everyone else couldn’t afford to let the tanned male remain with that personality shift for the rest of his life. It would be unbearable to see such a thing happening.

 

“Because…” started mumbling Aomine, a pained look on his face as he pulled the pillow closer to his chin and leaned his head on it. “I think Kagami-chan likes Tetsu-chan…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

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	12. Wind Shift

Kagami carefully, but not that softly, dropped his belongings to the bench in the middle of the locker room used by the basketball club during practice. He immediately opened his school bag and took from inside Murasakibara’s tiny version.

 

“Ugh… You should try to be nicer to me…” complained Murasakibara, his head spinning around due to the motions he had been subjected to while inside of the dark and quite stuffy school bag. “You have a quite violent way of walking, Kagami…”

 

“Shut it!” grumbled Kagami, putting the purple haired male on top of the bench and then turning around to arrange his things on the locker that had been assigned to him when he joined the basketball team. “You should be glad that I even brought you along with me. I’ll warn you beforehand, Murasakibara… Be careful or you might get eaten by Nigou.”

 

“Nigou doesn’t have the habit of eating random things, Kagami-kun,” pointed out a sudden soft voice, right beside the redhead.

 

“Whoa, Kuroko!!” yelped Kagami, unconsciously slamming the locker’s door closed with the scare that the out-of-the-blue appearance of the bluenette had caused in him. That sure was something that didn’t happen in quite a while. “When did you get here?”

 

“I was already in the locker room when you too came inside,” explained Kuroko while finishing adjusting his training clothes for the first morning basketball practice of that school year. “I even greeted you, Kagami-kun.”

 

“Yeah, well… Sorry ‘bout that…” apologized Kagami, feeling slightly bad for the smaller male. They had known each other for basically one year now and he still couldn’t see the bluenette at first glance most of the time. Misdirection sure had its downsides, he had come to realize, but coming off as unseen even by his own teammates? He could only pity Kuroko from time to time due to his natural lack of presence.

 

“Kuro-chin, are you feeling better?” asked Murasakibara, who had settled himself in the bench on a sitting position. “Are you actually well enough to come to school already?”

 

“Yes, I’m fine, Murasakibara-kun. Thank you for worrying about me,” answered Kuroko, turning his head over in the tiny male’s direction and giving a quick, soft smile to him.

 

“Was it because of your curse?” innocently asked Murasakibara, his head a little bit tilted to the left as he looked up to the bluenette.

 

“…!” Kuroko’s whole body visibly shook at that question. He remained completely silent for a couple more of seconds, swallowing hard the big lump that had formed in his throat due to the plainly embarrassing and both physically and mentally exhausting things that had happened in a single day of his life. “Have you decided on how you will return to Akita, Murasakibara-kun?”

 

“Yeah, Muro-chin will come today in the afternoon to Tokyo to get me,” sighed Murasakibara, a sulking expression on his tiny features. “Until then, I guess I will have to hang out with you, Kuro-chin. And Kagami, since the meeting spot with Muro-chin is in his house…”

 

 _So misdirection can also be applied to conversations, huh…,_ inwardly pointed out Kagami, looking sideways to the bluenette as he started getting changed to his training clothes. He could only wonder how many times he had already fallen for the exact same trick… and the thought alone was making him slightly annoyed at the smaller male.

 

“It’s totally a bad thing that is about to come our way!” sounded a voice from the other side of the locker room’s door. Soon, the door opened to show Koganei Shinji and Mitobe Rinnosuke.

 

Hurriedly, Kagami grabbed the tiny purple haired male and slammed him inside of his locker, pushing him against the towels he had there to muffle his complaints about that sudden “mistreatment”.

 

“Hey, Kagami, Kuroko! How’s it going?” cheerfully greeted Koganei, Mitobe beside him giving a quick bow with his head.

 

“Good morning, Koganei-senpai, Mitobe-senpai,” greeted back Kuroko, also giving a quick bow with his head as he tried to not roll his eyes over the redhead’s clumsy actions to hide the purple haired male. Luckily everyone in the basketball club knew that Kagami had weird quirks every now and then.

 

“Yeah, ‘morning, Senpai,” also greeted Kagami, pushing the purple haired male more strongly against the towel while throwing him a sideways glare to silently order him to stay put and be extremely quiet while inside of the locker.

 

“Have you seen Riko when you got here?” asked Koganei, stopping in front of his locker and opening it so he could change his clothes to get ready for the morning practice.

 

“Coach? No, I haven’t,” answered Kagami, finally withdrawing his arm from the locker’s insides and taking a peek to the bluenette, who also shook his head in denial. “Did something happen with her?”

 

“Nope. Something is about to happen to _us_ ,” explained Koganei, a sudden shudder running down his spine at the past almost traumatizing events that they had to go through when something similar happened. “We just passed by her and she… she was _skipping_.”

 

“…!” Kagami’s whole body froze completely at hearing that word appearing in the same sentence as Aida Riko’s name, his face unusually pale and lifeless. He took another peek to the bluenette, who remained with the usual expressionless face as always, but his body fidgeted just the slightest as he finished organizing his things inside of his locker.

 

Aida Riko skipping around through the school grounds was always terrible news for them. However, he had an exceptionally bad feeling about what it would be this time around. A _really_ bad feeling.

 

-.-

 

All third and second-year members of Seirin High School’s boy basketball club were chatting with each other inside of the gym, talking about the most diverse of subjects, though all of them always lead to basketball at some point. When a whistle resounded through the big building, all of them quieted down and looked over to the arriving female coach, Aida Riko.

 

“Good morning, guys!” greeted Riko, a huge smile on her face. She dropped her whistle, which remained around her neck due to the cord attached to it, and tapped the clipboard being held by her right hand on her left one. “It’s great to find you all here. Not that I didn’t expect it. Today it’s the first day of the new school year and we will need to start hunting for first years. However, that will only happen next week."

 

“What? Why?” asked Hyuuga Junpei, an eyebrow slightly arched at hearing those words. He, Riko and Izuki had planned to start searching for new members for the basketball club that very same week, if not on that day itself. When the glasses wearing male saw the mischievous smirk that appeared in the brunette’s face at his question, _all_ of the players there shuddered.

 

“Because from today’s afternoon practice until the end of this week, which means Saturday, we will hold a joint practice with another basketball team,” explained Riko, her voice almost singing those words with the excitement she felt since the unexpected phone call that she received the previous night had ended. “Prepare yourselves, Seirin! I expect you to defeat Rakuzan High’s basketball team in all of our games against them!”

 

“Rakuzan? You’re kidding me, right?” asked Izuki Shun, his mouth open with shock at that sudden arrangement that he had no knowledge of beforehand. “Aren’t they from Kyoto? Why are they coming from there to Tokyo?”

 

“I don’t know,” answered Riko, giving a quick shrug with her shoulders. “But isn’t this a great opportunity? We get to practice with three Uncrowned Kings and one member of the Generation of Miracles for a week. How lucky can we get?”

 

Gulping down hard, Kagami slowly turned his face to the bluenette standing beside him. Kuroko’s face remained the most neutral possible at hearing that unexpected joint practice with the last person that he most likely would want to have around during such a setting. However, he knew very well that the smaller male was nearing a panic attack as we speak. He might not show it in his face, but Kagami knew him well enough to sense the huge wave of dismay that the bluenette felt right now.

 

“So that’s it, guys,” continued Riko, her eyes peering over to the clipboard. “This morning practice will be the same regiment as last school year but in the afternoon we will receive Rakuzan and schedule with them our incoming regiment for this whole week. Any questions?”

 

“Um… Riko-san?” started Kuroko, raising his hand in the air. “Due to health reasons, I will not be able to come to the basketball practice this whole week. I would like to request time off.”

 

“Are you sick or did you get any injury during school break?” asked Riko, a smile on her face as she looked over to the bluenette.

 

“No, I’m not sick or injured,” answered Kuroko, taking a step backwards when the brunette started walking over in his direction.

 

“Do you have any paper from a doctor stating that you are with a current physical condition that doesn’t enable you to come to the practices?” asked further Riko, a smile still present on her lips as she stopped right in front of the bluenette.

 

“No, I don—“ started answering Kuroko but he suddenly found himself on the floor, a headlock being performed on his body by the female coach. “Ah… R-Riko…san… Please… wait…!”

 

“What do you mean you want time off right now, Kuroko-kun?” admonished Riko, tightening her hold on the bluenette’s body. “We need you in the joint practice to have a chance of winning against Akashi Seijuurou’s Emperor Eye and the three Uncrowned Kings! So don’t start spewing jokes like that one which will make me headlock you!!”

 

“C-Coach, you’re going to kill him before that time arrives,” warned Kagami as he observed the bluenette’s features get redder and redder due to lack of oxygen on his body.

 

“N-No… Please… kill me…” requested Kuroko with considerable difficulty due to the way his body was being twisted around by the small but extremely strong female. When his body was suddenly released, he fully slumped down on the floor, panting hard to restore all the air that was currently very scarce on his respiratory system.

 

“Are you okay, Kuroko?” asked Kagami, crouching down near the panting bluenette. Kuroko did try to lift his hand and do a thumbs up, but his limb readily fell back to the floor. The redhead had a suspicion that he wasn’t reacting like this because of the headlock. “U-Um… Coach, I think that Kuroko really is dying right now…”

 

“Eh!? I didn’t headlock him with all that much strength!” yelped Riko right away, hurriedly walking back to near the sprawled on the floor bluenette and then crouching down next to the redhead. “A-Are you okay, Kuroko-kun? We need you so you can’t just die because of a headlock!”

 

“I think your announcement killed him more than your headlock…” mumbled Kagami under his breath. When the brunette looked over at him with a lost expression on her face, he awkwardly cleared his throat and motioned his hands to the smaller male, circling his waist with one of his arms and grabbing into his scrawny arm with the other so he could pull him up. “I’ll take him to the locker room so he can rest for a little bit.”

 

“Sure. When he returns to his usual self, come back, the both of you,” acknowledged Riko while also nodding her head at it. She then turned around to the other players, all of them with a worried expression as they saw the two males walk away. “Meanwhile, you guys! Let’s stop slacking off and start working!”

 

As he carried pretty much dead weight on the side of his body, Kagami heard his teammates loudly acknowledge the orders being told by the female coach. As they exited the gym and started motioning back to the locker room, he looked down to the bluenette. “Are you feeling okay, Kuroko?”

 

“I’ll survive… unfortunately…” feebly answered Kuroko, already starting to move his legs more freely to help the redhead carry his weight. “Though I think it won’t be a very long life extension.”

 

“But won’t it be a good thing for you?” asked Kagami, coming to a halt in the middle of the corridor that led to the locker room, the door further ahead of them. “If Akashi is around, you’ll have more chances to confess to him, right?”

 

“No, it’s the exact opposite, actually,” corrected Kuroko, adjusting his training clothes slightly due to both the headlock and dragging around that he had been subjected to. “If Akashi-kun is near me, _that_ will happen. So having to do a week-long joint practice with his team will be impossible for me. I will die before I manage to confess to him. I don’t even know if I can see him from afar after yesterday’s phone call.”

 

“Phone call?” repeated Kagami, an eyebrow slightly arched at hearing the bluenette’s words. “He called you after he took you home? Why didn’t you use that opportunity to confess to him, then?”

 

“With the topic of our conversation, it was virtually impossible to confess,” answered Kuroko, a forced blank demeanour on his face.

 

“Why? Did you have a dirty talk with him?” teasingly asked Kagami, a sly smirk on his features. When he saw the bluenette’s face explode in a myriad of shades of red and then hurriedly crouch down on the floor to hide it, the smirk was completely wiped out of his lips. “Eh? Seriously? I was right on this one?”

 

“Please leave it at that, Kagami-kun,” beckoned Kuroko, feeling his face currently burning like a furnace. “I simply don’t know what I should do… I guess my only option right now is to transfer to another school or, worst case scenario, move to another country.”

 

“Geez, you’re blowing this out of proportion,” sighed Kagami, crossing his arms over his chest and leaning his back on the wall beside the crouched down bluenette. “You like Akashi, right? So I guess it’s normal to get turned on by him. You don’t really need to spend the rest of your life hiding from him just because of it. It’s a totally normal thing for a 16 years old male.”

 

“I don’t think you really understand my curse, Kagami-kun,” mumbled Kuroko, slowly lifting his head out of near his knees. “I don’t get turned on by having Akashi-kun around or hearing his voice… I get _massively_ turned on. The crippling type of turned on. The—“

 

“The ‘I-want-to-get-in-your-pants-asap-even-if-we-are-in-a-bathroom-of-a-café-or-in-the-middle-of-a-basketball-practice-game’ type of turned on?” interrupted Kagami, once again a small smirk on his lips. He felt bad for the bluenette over this whole curse business. He truly did. But it was sort of amusing to see the usually expressionless and deadpan male actually panicking over such a teenager-like problem (even if in augmented proportions).

 

Kuroko groaned loudly and heavily slammed his face back on his knees.

 

“…Yes… That type of turned on…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mafy's Info:  
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> You can show your support for my fanfictions and help me achieve my goals of self-publication for original stories in Ko-fi!


	13. First Try, First Failure

Panting desperately, Midorima stopped beside the main gate of Shuutoku High, the side of his body leaned on the wall as he tried to regain enough strength on his legs to walk. He took a deep breath and adjusted his substitute glasses (his usual pair was currently on top of his desk on his bedroom, waiting to be taken to the optician and get fixed – his younger sister had accidentally sent a toy to his face and the already existing crack there basically made the lenses explode with the impact).

 

This morning’s walk to school had been, literally, Hell for the green haired male. As soon as he stepped outside of his house, a bird flying in the sky at that moment released its biological waste on top of his head, which forced him to go back inside to get cleaned. While walking on the street, following the map he had created with the safest route to his school, he dropped his cell phone on the ground and it got ran over by a motorcycle. As he picked up the remnants of the electronic device, a dog started running in his direction and furiously pursued him until he managed to hide in a park. Apparently, he shared his hiding location with an extremely angry cat that got his school uniform to the gloriously ripped stage that it currently had.

 

So right now, Midorima Shintarou was tired, covered in dirt and leaves… and in a really bad mood.

 

Midorima released one more loud and extremely exasperated sigh and departed his body from the wall, fully entering in the school grounds and doing his very best to ignore the weird looks he was receiving from the other students due to his appearance. Midorima quickly strode to the shoe lockers and dropped his heavy school bag on the wooden flooring, motioning his hand forward to take his indoor shoes out of the locker.

 

“S-Shin-chan, what the heck happened to you!?” yelped Takao as soon as he saw the taller male while he was crossing that area in search, truth to the told, of the student that he was now looking at with a shocked expression.

 

“…” Midorima straightened his back and looked over to the raven-haired male, quickly adjusting his glasses afterwards before once again motioning down to put his shoes on. “Some circumstances prevented me from having my usually peaceful morning walk to school.”

 

“Did you not find your lucky item of the day for some reason?” hurriedly asked Takao, walking over to near the green-haired male. He knew very well what were the effects of Midorima not having the lucky item indicated by Oha Asa – he would experience extreme bad luck when he didn’t have that sometimes ridiculous object with him, for as unbelievable as it may sound. However, even when he had a hard time to find the said item, the green haired male had never looked this pitiful until he managed to get it.

 

“No, I have my lucky item right here,” said Midorima,  pointing with his tapped index finger to the little flower pot made of rubber laid inside of the shoe locker as he worked his way around on putting his last indoor shoe.

 

“Then what happened?” asked Takao, switching his gaze from the lucky item to the green haired male once again. When the taller male remained silent at his question and simply finished putting his shoes on, he had a feeling that it was somewhat related to the messages they had exchanged the previous night. “Shin-chan, is it related to you not wanting me to go pick you up in the morning? You said you had to talk to me about it the soonest you could with me.”

 

“I-I did not say it had to be soonest I can!” corrected Midorima, a soft shade of pink on his cheeks as he turned his face the other way so he could hide his expression from Takao. “I do have to talk with you but it can be done whenever I feel like i—“

 

A sudden eerie noise of metal scrapping on a hard surface interrupted Midorima as he was talking. When Midorima looked sideways, he only had time to push Takao and himself out of the wooden flooring and fully into the corridor before the lockers on the opposite side of his own heavily fell on top of the place where they had been standing.

 

“Uwah… That was a close one…” mumbled Takao, his heart thundering on his chest at the near-death experience that both of them had just experienced. “Thanks, Shin-chan~ Is this what you experience when you don’t have your lucky items with you? But… You have yours right now. What the heck is going on?”

 

“…” Midorima adjusted his glasses, his face slightly paler than usual, and cleared his throat softly. “I-It seems that having that conversation right now may come in handy to prevent future disasters… Come, Takao!”

 

“E-Eh? Shin-chan? What’s going on?” asked Takao when the green haired male suddenly grabbed his arm and started pulling him along through the corridor, leaving behind the fallen shoe locker. To not just being straight out hauled around by Midorima, he quickly picked up his pace and followed along with him, his arm never released by the strong grip. “Shin-chan, what’s the matter?”

 

“Just be quiet for now,” shortly said Midorima, quickly climbing the stairs to the upper floors of the school building. In his face was present a serious demeanour.

 

If he wanted to finish this with one blow, he had to find a place inside of the school grounds where nobody would interrupt them and where none of them could be a possible victim to his curse. Taking every classroom and division of that building into consideration, as well as the proximity to their current location, Midorima continued to silently pull Takao with him as he climbed the stairs until the very top, so they could reach the door that gave access to the rooftop.

 

On that small space, there would be no one, since it was almost time for the classes to start, and there was nothing that could fall on top of them or any other deadly object around. They would be near the stairs, but if they positioned themselves near the door, which he would need to certificate himself that it was well closed, they wouldn’t be under the risk of falling down the stairs and possibly break a leg or, worse yet, their necks.

 

Once they reached the top of the staircase, Midorima came to a halt and put Takao near the door, which he carefully checked to make sure that it wouldn’t suddenly open and crash against them while he was talking. After that possible danger was taken off of his mind, he looked around to see if there was anything lying around on the floor, forgotten by a student.

 

“Um… Shin-chan?” hesitantly called Takao, an eyebrow slightly arched as he observed the green-haired male searching around on the floor by something that he seemed to not find and felt actually satisfied for it to be that way. “Ah… When are you going to start saying whatever it is that you want to tell me?”

 

Midorima straightened his back and turned around, walking back to near Takao. He intently looked to the smaller male and then adjusted his glasses, averting his gaze when a light shade of pink once again popped up in his cheeks. “Well, I guess I should start explaining it from the beginning. I met with my former teammates this weekend, as you know.”

 

“Oh yeah, you did say something about it when I texted you during the weekend,” acknowledged Takao, remembering about that event now that the green haired male was bringing it up.

 

“Yes, exactly. So, during the gathering, we accidentally brought an extremely troublesome situation to all six of us, some in worse ways than the others,” continued explaining Midorima, still not making eye contact with Takao. “We… We sort of got… cursed…”

 

“Eh? Cursed?” repeated Takao, his mouth gaping slightly at those words. Was Midorima trying to pull a prank on him? No, he is a tsundere so it would be highly unlikely that he would try to do such a thing. Then, was this really…? “Y-You say you’ve been cursed but… How?”

 

“We ate some jelly beans and have been cursed by them,” shortly explained Midorima, a sour look appearing on his face at his own words. He could have contested about Kise’s idea of eating the jelly beans as a game played due to the gathering… but the prospect of seeing the usually expressionless Kuroko make a nasty expression made him sort of curious. How much he regretted it right now.

 

“Pffft… Wait! J-Jelly beans? Buwahahahahahahahaha!” Takao burst into laughter out of the blue, his arms clutching at his stomach as his back was slightly bent forward. “S-Shin-chan, that’s a joke, right? Ahahahaha! You six got cursed with… jelly beans? Ahahahahahaha!”

 

“I’m not joking right now!” insisted Midorima, getting irked at the amusement that Takao was displaying at his current extremely distressful situation. “You saw what happened near the lockers, didn’t you? That was because of my curse! I’ve been carrying my lucky item with me at all times since the gathering has ended but I’ve almost been killed so many times since then that I have lost count!”

 

“S-So your ‘curse’ nullifies the effectiveness of lucky items and amplifies the bad luck you have when you don’t have them with you?” asked Takao, trying to control his laughter inside once again. But when he saw the huge frown that appeared in Midorima’s face, he couldn’t help but break down into another laugh attack. “Ahahahahahaha! Shin-chan, even if you tell me something like that… Ahahaha! I can’t really seem to believe you! I mean… it’s so ridiculous! Getting curse by jelly beans? Ahahahahahahahaha!”

 

“You want more proofs about the curse?” asked Midorima, motioning his hand to his school bag and taking from there a piece of paper. While he was preparing to face a day in school while cursed, he certified himself that he had a printed photo of Kise with his ears and tail since he was very well aware of how unbelievable his words may sound to someone who wasn’t fully knowledgeable of the whole situation. He turned the photo around and put it in front of the smaller male’s face. “Here’s a photo of Kise with Murasakibara! His curse is to have dog ears and tail. Murasakibara is right beside him and, as you can see, he’s almost of the size of a soda can right now. Akashi is talking in a maddening way using idioms left and right and Aomine thinks he’s a girl. I don’t really know what Kuroko’s curse is but his health is probably affected by it since he actually passed out when we met yesterday. Do you believe me now!?”

 

“Oh shit…” Takao once again stopped laughing and motioned his hand forward, grabbing the photo and more closely analyzing it with his well-honed eyes. “This… is not photoshopped, right?”

 

“It clearly isn’t,” answered Midorima while adjusting his glasses and then finally looked over to the raven-haired male, whose amusement had now completely disappeared from his face. It seemed that he was finally understanding that this ‘ridiculous’ situation was as real as the bad luck usually caused by the absence of his lucky item of the day.

 

“Then you are really under the risk of being killed due to your extreme bad luck?” asked Takao, lifting his eyes from the photo and peering over to the taller male. When he saw him simply nodding his head at it and once again averting his gaze, Takao couldn’t help but gulp down hard. “How do you break this curse, then? There must be some sort of method to do it, right? Is there something I can do to help you, Shin-chan? You and the other five, of course.”

 

“I doubt you can help them but I guess that, for some completely absurd reason, you can help me,” sighed Midorima, his cheeks once again flushing slightly while he sideways glanced to the smaller male.

 

“Eh? I don’t really understand,” said Takao, his brows lightly frowning with incomprehension. “Why can I help you but not your former teammates? Are you trying to monopolize the great help of Kazunari-sama~?”

 

“That’s not it, you fool!” admonished Midorima, his blush darkening even more. He clumsily adjusted his glasses and took a step forward in Takao’s direction. “I have to do this in order to break the curse. I-It’s only because of the curse that I will say this! I had absolutely no plans of ever doing this before, okay? But don’t go misunderstanding my words just because I’m being forced to say it either. I mean it when I say it… even if I really dislike it.”

 

“You are confusing me even more with all this babbling, Shin-chan…” sighed Takao, not understanding why Midorima sounded so panicky right now. It wasn’t like he would have to kill him to break the curse – if he had, he wouldn’t have protected him from the falling shoe locker earlier. What could be so hard to say that was making the stone-faced Midorima Shintarou so nervous that his speech was getting all bundled up?

 

“I… I’m…” hesitantly started Midorima, the red hue on his cheeks getting so accentuated that it could be seen even with the glasses positioned on the bridge of his nose. To gain the courage to spit those words out and end once and for all his life-threatening curse, he gulped down hard and released the air that had unconsciously been kept locked inside of his lungs. “T-Takao, I’m in l—“

 

The school bell started ringing all of a sudden, signalizing that first period was going to start and completely cutting off the sound of the green haired male’s voice. A frown on his face, Midorima looked up and saw that one of the school bell system’s signal devices was on the wall next to them, right above their heads.

 

“Ah, sorry, Shin-chan. I couldn’t hear you because of the bell,” apologized Takao, observing the down-casted expression in the taller male’s features. “Can you repeat it again?”

 

“Never mind,” grudgingly said Midorima, adjusting his glasses and stepping away from near the raven haired male. Then he started walking to the stairs, a big frown on his face. “I’ll talk with you in the next break. Let’s go to the classroom for n—“

 

The green haired male’s voice was once again interrupted when he reached the stairs and his foot missed the correct position to land on the first step, making his large body fall down on the floor and slid down through the lance of stairs to the floor below just like he was motioning down a slide. Only this slide, in particular, was extremely painful and completely unorthodox for a human body.

 

“S-Shin-chan!?” yelped Takao, motioning down the stairs right away to tend to the fallen male on the floor connected to that entrance of the rooftop. He crouched down next to the green haired male and helped him to a straight sitting position. “Are you okay?”

 

“I will so totally kill Murasakibara for this…” grumbled Midorima as he tried to shake the dust out of his ripped uniform. “Kise and Aomine too since they were the ones who suggested to play that game… Akashi and Kuroko are on that list too since Akashi was the one who suggested the gathering and convinced Murasakibara to come, and Kuroko was the reason why the game sounded so appealing… Yes, I will finish them off before they have a chance to break their curse… Fufufu…”

 

Observing as the green haired male continued to mumble to himself, Takao got at a complete loss of what he should do about this whole ‘jelly bean’s curse’. “W-What am I supposed to do now? S-Shin-chan has completely snapped…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mafy's Info:  
> [Twitter](https://twitter.com/Mafy_mod)  
> [Tumblr](http://mafymod.tumblr.com/)  
> [Ko-fi](https://ko-fi.com/I2I49KM4)  
> You can show your support for my fanfictions and help me achieve my goals of self-publication for original stories in Ko-fi!


	14. Here and There, Doubts and Questions

As soon as the school bell announced the beginning of lunch break, the cell phone of the student sitting on the seat behind Kagami vibrated for the thousandth time since he had seen the bluenette in the locker room for morning practice. As it continued to vibrate even during classes, the redhead figured that Kuroko had been using his misdirection to reply to whoever it was continuously texting him throughout the morning.

 

“Hey, Kuroko!” started saying Kagami in a voice that almost seemed a groan, his body turning around while sitting on his seat to look in the smaller male’s direction. “You’ve been texting back and forward the whole morning. What exactly is so urgent for you, who doesn’t text anyone even if it was to save your life, to be doing it even during classes?”

 

“Ah… Well, Aomine-kun has been very insistent since last night in getting some advice from me,” answered Kuroko, finishing texting back the tanned male and then flipping his cell phone closed, his teal eyes raising from the electronic device to look to the taller male.

 

“Advice?” repeated Kagami, one of his dual eyebrows arching slightly at hearing those words. What exactly could that basketball idiot be asking from a former teammate? Suddenly the answer popped up in his head and his heart painfully squeezed at it. “O-Oh… I see… Be sure to help him out, he’s a freaking idiot, after all.”

 

“I don’t think you are the best person to be calling another an idiot, Kagami-kun,” deadpanned Kuroko, turning his gaze afterwards back to his cell phone when it started vibrating with an incoming text once again.

 

“Shut it!” roared Kagami, averting looking to the bluenette as he opened his cell phone and started writing a reply to whatever it was that had been sent to him. Feeling extremely irked at the action, he turned around to face forward once again, his elbows landing on his desk violently as he grumbled to himself. “So he already started to find a way to confess to Kuroko… And he’s going around asking the person himself? Heck, he could… have asked for _my_ help… I would have tried my best to help Ahomine out… Idiot… Fucking asshole…”

 

“Kagami-kun, are you alright?” asked Kuroko, his body motioning sideways on his seat so he could take a peek to the redhead, who was inaudibly talking to himself. “I can text Aomine-kun later, so why don’t we go get our lunch from the cafeteria?”

 

“Ah! Umm… No, it’s okay,” answered Kagami in a clumsy way, clearing his throat softly to try to restore his demeanour to his usual one. “Focus on helping that bastard out. It’s awkwardly painful to see him acting that way. And I doubt he can actually play any basketball with his current personality. Or at least in his usual way.”

 

“Yes, he probably can’t,” acknowledged Kuroko, releasing a soft, but slightly exasperated, sigh. He got up from his desk and gave a short walk until he stopped next to the redhead, a small smile on his lips as he looked in his direction. “But even if we have to find a way to break everyone’s curse, we also need to have the energy to think of a way to do so. Let’s go have lunch, Kagami-kun.”

 

“…” The redhead intently looked to the smaller male for brief seconds and then released a quick snort. “Heh! Always the level-headed one… Even though you turned into a mushy and panicky mess yesterday because of Akashi and your curse.”

 

“…!” As quickly as he could, Kuroko averted the redhead’s gaze, a dark red blush on his features that he immediately tried to conceal by half-hiding his face with the back of his hand. “P-Please just drop that already and let’s go grab our lunch. Oh, we should also take Murasakibara-kun with us. He must be quite hungry right now.”

 

“Yes, yes,” teasingly acknowledged Kagami, a knowing smirk on his lips. With the usual expressionless demeanour that the bluenette had on pretty much all the time, this blushing expression surely came as a surprise. _Who knew Kuroko can actually blush like an innocent maiden when in love with another person?_

 

The redhead bent his back forward a little bit and opened his school bag, rumbling through its insides as he searched for the purple haired male’s location.

 

“Huh?” interjected Kagami, his eyebrow a little bit perked up at what he was seeing… or in this case, at what he _wasn’t_ seeing. A shiver ran down through his spine and he pulled his school bag out of the hook on the side of his desk, fully putting it on top of the table’s surface so he could search better for the tiny male.

 

“Is something the matter, Kagami-kun?” asked Kuroko, his head slightly tilted to the left as he looked over to the taller male with a quizzical expression on his face.

 

“Ah… Um… I think we have a problem right now,” announced Kagami, his voice and semblance slightly flustered. “I think… I lost Murasakibara.”

 

“Eh? What do you mean by you ‘lost’ Murasakibara-kun?” asked Kuroko, an eyebrow also getting lightly arched with the confusion that he felt at the taller male’s words.

 

“He’s not in my bag. And I’m sure I took him to school. I mean, you saw him in the locker roo—“ started explaining Kagami but he came to a sudden halt to his own words, getting up from his desk like greased lightning. “Shit, we forgot him inside of my locker. He’s so totally going to be pissy about it now.”

 

“I’m sure he’ll forgive us if we give him some snacks or sweets,” pointed out Kuroko, starting to walk outside of their classroom to go back to the locker room used by the basketball club. “And he’s also at fault for not saying anything. You might have told him to remain quiet in a quite threateningly way, but Murasakibara-kun isn’t really one that obeys other people. Well, if we put Akashi-kun and Himuro-san on the sidelines, of course.”

 

“Yeah, but I just have this nagging feeling that Murasakibara is just… antagonistic of me, maybe?” added Kagami, heaving a long sigh afterwards. “He says he didn’t want to come to my apartment but he still came with me. And every time we talk with each other, he just glares the crap out of me with those tiny purple eyes of his. Don’t even let me start on how cold his glare is when the topic of the conversation is Tatsuya…”

 

“Your first meeting wasn’t exactly under friendly circumstances, so maybe it’s a residual effect of it,” said Kuroko, part of him pitying the redhead over his current distress. Kagami wasn’t exactly a person who wanted to be liked by others, but he sometimes put on an effort of getting along with them – Murasakibara was one of those cases simply because he was his ‘older brother’s’ teammate.

 

“My first meeting with Akashi was far worse and he just doesn’t try to bore a hole through my head every time we see each other. Well, most of the time he doesn’t…” pointed out Kagami, feeling a shudder creep up his spine at the way the smaller redhead had glared at him the previous day when he was searching for the bluenette.

 

Now that he was thinking about it, it was pretty clear why Akashi had taken such an unusual greeting on their first meeting on last year’s Winter Cup, be it on the opening ceremony, be it on the day they played against each other on the finals. Akashi must have felt threatened by the closeness between him and Kuroko and, since it was his crazy persona that was out at that time, he took drastic measures to make it clear who was the top dog when the bluenette was concerned.

 

Kagami wasn’t really sure how both of them felt throughout the intense game between Seirin and Rakuzan but it must have been an extremely emotionally charged game, perhaps even more than when they faced against Touou, whether on the game they lost, whether on the game they won. Kuroko momentarily lost his best attribute as a basketball player, his misdirection, and Akashi reverted back to his original self, actually admitting that that time around, it was the bluenette’s win.

 

Most likely, not only that game was the completion of the mission that Kuroko had assigned himself to do, which consisted in correcting the wrongdoings of the Generation of Miracles and prove that his basketball could be as victorious as theirs, but it served to reignite Kuroko’s and Akashi’s feelings for one another, perhaps in a whole new and deeper level.

 

 _Then again, I really don’t understand how Kuroko hasn’t realized that all he has to do is let Akashi confess to him and use that chance to break his own curse,_ inwardly voiced out Kagami, looking at the bluenette walking beside him sideways. _From the little that I know about Akashi, I’m 100% sure that he planned this week-long joint practice between our team and his because he knows that one day wouldn’t be enough to force Kuroko to actually come around and confess to hi— …Wait… Does Akashi know that Kuroko is in love with him?_

 

“…” Kagami came into a sudden halt while he was crossing the corridor and fully turned around in the smaller male’s direction, an eyebrow arched high as he stared at him with a questioning expression.

 

“Kagami-kun?” called Kuroko, also stopping when he noticed that the redhead had become frozen in place while intently staring at him with a dumbfounded look on his face. “Is everything okay?”

 

“O-Oh, yeah,” awkwardly acknowledged Kagami, readily averting the bluenette’s gaze and rubbing the back of his neck, once again resuming with his walk to the basketball’s team’s locker room.

 

Kagami never truly understood Akashi all that well – he actually doubted that anyone could if even the person himself – but he knew that Kuroko was in love with him for quite a while now. He recently also came to know that Akashi corresponded to the smaller male’s feelings and that, for as out of character as it may seem for both parties, they exchanged a quite naughty phone call the previous day, most likely caused by the bluenette’s curse and the redhead’s twisted personality that enabled him to use anything, whatever it may be, in favor of his personal ploys and schemes. Though that was the case, Kagami couldn’t really imagine Akashi (the original self, at least) forcing Kuroko into having that type of conversation with him if he didn’t have the inkling that the only reason why his curse had taken such ways was his repressed love towards him.

 

That being the case… Why exactly haven’t their curses being broken yet, since Akashi surely wasn’t the type to lay low and pass upon an opportunity that had been delivered to him on a silver platter? Also, if Akashi wanted to play on the side of the field that favoured him the most, why didn’t he invite Seirin’s basketball team to come to Kyoto and play in Rakuzan’s home base instead of coming all the way to Tokyo to accomplish the exact same achievement?

 

_What exactly is Akashi’s plan and how much has he actually foreseen to happen in the near future for him to be taking such creepy measures when he could have ended his and Kuroko’s curse yesterday?_

 

Even with all of his musings over that particular subject, Kagami couldn’t figure out what were the smaller redhead’s current intentions. Maybe, just like other people called him, he truly was an idiot.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mafy's Info:  
> [Twitter](https://twitter.com/Mafy_mod)  
> [Tumblr](http://mafymod.tumblr.com/)  
> [Ko-fi](https://ko-fi.com/I2I49KM4)  
> You can show your support for my fanfictions and help me achieve my goals of self-publication for original stories in Ko-fi!


	15. The Decision

“Geeeeeeeeez~ Where did Tetsu-chan go to stop answering me!?” loudly complained Aomine as he also loudly slammed his hands on the surface of his desk. He returned his body back to his chair and leaned his forehead on the table, sighing exasperatedly. “Sat-chan told me to find a way to confess to Kagami-chan, even if he truly is love with Tetsu-chan, but… But how am I supposed to do that without Tetsu-chan’s help on the matter~!? They’re the ones who are partners in basketball! And classmates! And the light and shadow that even defeated me!! And… And Kagami-chan is in love with Tetsu-chan…”

 

“I-I don’t really get it but… I’m sorry!” apologized Sakurai Ryou as he also repeatedly bowed down his head to the tanned male. He had simply come to deliver the taller male’s bento and eat together with him, but he had found him with a whole new make-over – and it wasn’t only in terms of appearance. Actually, if only it was the small difference in semblance that was being noticed by everyone.

 

Aomine had gone through a completely 180-degree change from one day to another. His usual confident self was nowhere to be found and he continuously delved into deep thinking periods to make the smallest of decisions. The way he talked was as if he was a girl, his usual rough and violent dialect completely lost in the middle of cute remarks and soft words. He was still as loud as usual, but not in a manly way – he gave small and acute shrieks as he talked about how to solve his apparent romantic attraction with the first basketball player that had defeated him in his whole life.

 

“Ahhh… Why is my life so hard, even though I’m such a cute and beautiful teenage girl…” sighed Aomine, his forehead sluggishly being rubbed against his desk’s surface. “If it weren’t for this curse… I could continue to go about my life as usual forever… Me and Kagami-chan and Tetsu-chan meeting during the weekends… Playing basketball together… Not knowing who is in love with who… Or having to confess your first love to someone who is in love with your former partner and ‘shadow’ in basketball, the sport that I love the most… Ugh… Argh… Ngh…!”

 

“Um… Aomine-kun?” hesitantly called Sakurai, his face half hidden behind his own bento box. When the taller male shifted his head against the desk just the slightest and peeked over in his direction with eyes slightly watery, the brunette softly cleared his throat and settled his food back in the table. “I-I’m not very in with this whole thing – I’m sorry! – and I’m also not an expert in romance – I’m sorry for that too! – but isn’t this how love is supposed to be?”

 

“Huh?” interjected Aomine, his head immediately being raised from the desk and looking over to the smaller male, who flinched visibly, with a completely lost expression on his face.

 

“I-I mean… I-It’s impossible for the person someone falls in love with to feel the same for them all the time, right?” tried to explain Sakurai, his body unconsciously motioning further away from the tanned male. “So, when we have an unrequited love, the best solution is letting it go. And if we can’t let it go, then we just have to summon all of our courage and confess to them, even if we know that we are going to be rejected. That rejection will help us move forward and find a new love, someone who will love us back just as much as we love them.”

 

“Saku-chan…” softly mumbled Aomine, his eyes even more open in surprise now. “You’re right…”

 

“Eh…? I am? And… ‘S-Saku-chan’…?” hesitantly questioned Sakurai, his brain going round and round at all the confusion that he was currently feelings towards yet more words from the new version of Aomine Daiki, the former ace of Teikou Middle School and current ace of Touou Academy.

 

“This is so not like the confident, cute and beautiful woman that I am!” suddenly yelled Aomine, getting up from his desk in a swift motion and making the chair tumble down to the floor. “Even if Kagami-chan is in love with Tetsu-chan and will reject me, I have to confess to him! And it’s more than obvious that I can’t give up! It would be against my personality and believes to just stop there! If Kagami-chan is in love with Tetsu-chan, then I’m going to make him fall for me! I swear to the moon and to the stars that I’m going to be the victorious queen of this love story! The only one who can beat me is me, even when it comes to romance! Ahahahahahaha!”

 

“E-Even if it’s weird, I’m glad that you’re feeling better, Aomine-kun,” softly said Sakurai, still extremely confused about everything that was succeeding right in front of his eyes. “Just please quickly return to your usual self, because I have the feeling that you can’t exactly play basketball like normal right now… I-I’m sorry!!!”

 

“Eh? Of course I can, Saku-chan!” announced Aomine, a dead serious expression on his face. He ripped a page from one of his notebooks and crumpled it up to form a paper ball. He then turned his body around just the slightest and threw the ball in the air in a trash can’s direction. “See? I can still play bas—“

 

The paper ball continued to climb and fly through the air… but it suddenly fell on top of an empty desk, not having travelled even half of the distance necessary to reach the opening and insides of the metal can.

 

“N-No way!!!!!” yelped Aomine furiously, his eyes open in shock and features twisted in disbelieve. He once again faced his desk and ripped another page, crumpling it into another ball and throwing it over to the same trash can – it was another missed shot. “No… No, no, no…! This can’t be real! This is a lie!!”

 

Three notebooks worth of ripped and crumpled pages later, Aomine had flooded the entire classroom with an endless sea of paper balls, none of them having reached the intended target. It was at that moment, his breath picked up due to the physical exertion and mental damage that each failed shot had caused in him, that the tanned male made a lifetime vow to himself.

 

“I… haa… I won’t let even 24 hours pass before I confess to Kagami-chan… Haa… If not… I will throw myself out of a bridge while tied to a 50 kilos block of cement.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mafy's Info:  
> [Twitter](https://twitter.com/Mafy_mod)  
> [Tumblr](http://mafymod.tumblr.com/)  
> [Ko-fi](https://ko-fi.com/I2I49KM4)  
> You can show your support for my fanfictions and help me achieve my goals of self-publication for original stories in Ko-fi!


	16. Non-Human Behaviour

_ Hello. My name is Kise Ryouta, a 16 years old high school student. I’m currently hiding inside of the storage room of one of Kaijou High’s gyms because my fangirls are out to kill me! _

 

Obviously, that wasn’t what was truly happening right that moment but Kise could swear that his life was being sucked dry out of him since early that morning. It was now well past lunch break and in a couple of hours, school would be over. He had been on his hideout for almost the entirety of his first day as a second-year student.

 

Being a famous male model and a budding basketball star, Kise was used to be the centre of everyone’s attention, whether female or male, young or old. He was used to be looked at with dreamy and fascinated eyes – not being looked at with weirded out glances. He was used to having photos taken of him, as his work required such, that would later be published in popular magazines or in large billboards – not having ridiculous photos taken by cell phones that would surely end up in the darkest places of the Internet.

 

He was used to girls wanting to constantly touch him, claiming how handsome he was – not freaking used to have girls wanting to  _ pet _ him, claiming how cute his dog ears and tail were!

 

Kise had obviously come to attend his first day of the new school year with all the due preparations to keep his terrible curse hidden from everyone... but as soon as his new homeroom teacher got to the classroom and saw him wearing a large winter coat, the big hoodie pulled up to cover most of his head, in mid March, it came without saying that, to his big demise, the teacher ordered him to immediately take his coat off.

 

The classroom was momentarily filled with a deep silence when two fluffy golden ears came into view on Kise’s head – only to all of a sudden burst into high and acute squeals by the female population of his class and loud laughs and whistles from the male one.

 

To make it even worse, as soon as the first break time arrived, his desk was surrounded by hungry fangirls, excited to touch his ears and the smooth-looking tail jutting out of the back of his grey school uniform. Never did Kise run as fast as during the second break, trying to find the safest location inside of the school grounds where he could be in total isolation.

 

Rumours that Kise Ryouta had now become officially the ‘pet dog’ of Zunon Boy had spread through the entire Kaijou High School like wildfire and everyone wanted to see such with their own eyes.

 

“This is absolutely the worst day of my life...” whimpered Kise, his body curled up in a secluded corner of the storage room, a small fortress made of large mattresses and cages with different types of balls neatly shielding him. “Ugh... I can’t wait for school to end... Kasamatsu-senpai will surely come by then and I can put an end to this ridiculous and degrading curse...!”

 

_ He has to come or my life will be totally ruined by my love for him... _

 

-.-

 

“Ahhh... What exactly have I done in my past life to deserve to have a kouhai like this, I wonder...?” heavily sighed Kasamatsu, his hands on his hips as he stared at the main gate of his previous high school, hordes of students exiting its inner grounds. He heaved another loud sigh and walked forward, a tinge of nostalgia hitting his brain at that extremely familiar location.

 

Those had been three wonderful years – especially the final one.

 

He took a peek at his cell phone and checked the time, deeming that the basketball training would be in its initial preparations and warming up rituals. The perfect time to have a conversation with the annoying blondie.

 

In all honesty, Kasamatsu was seriously thinking about refusing to meet with Kise when he called him. But just like an owner couldn’t refuse their dog when looked at with puppy eyes, hearing Kise say that this so-called problem that he was going through would affect his basketball practice, studies and job, as well as the whimpering voice that he displayed from the other side of the line... Kasamatsu had no choice but really come to Kaijou once again.

 

_ Even though I wanted to keep a certain distance from Kise for the time being, some sort of shit just had to happen!, _ inwardly cursed Kasamatsu, clicking his tongue as he furiously quickened his stride towards the gym appointed to the basketball club.

 

“Hey, guys!” greeted Kasamatsu as soon as he opened the door to the gym, stepping inside of the large building after having taken off his outdoor shoes.

 

“Kasamatsu-san! What are you doing here?” readily asked Nakamura Shinya, giving a short run towards his senior after having jumped up to a standing position while he was performing his stretches.

 

“Did you actuarry missed us this much, Kasamatsu-san?” asked forward Hayakawa Mitsuhiro, also running towards the older male with a bright satisfied smile on his features. “We wele actuarry commenting on how the plactice seems solt of quiet without you yerring at us.”

 

“Oh, you will probably hear me yelling plenty in a couple of minutes,” acknowledged Kasamatsu, rolling his eyes at the still present speaking problem of the brunette. He crossed his arms over his chest and skirted through the insides of the gym with his steel blue eyes. “Where’s Kise?”

 

“...” Nakamura and Hayakawa exchanged a quick glanced between themselves and then wordlessly returned their gazes back to the older male.

 

“Just what the fuck has that dumbass done this time...?” sighed Kasamatsu, feeling a vein on his forehead begging to pop out at the increasing anger that was already starting to bubble up in his insides. “Out with it!”

 

“Um... There’s a rumour going wild in Kaijou about Kise having become the ‘pet dog’ of that magazine that he models for,” started explaining Nakamura, quickly adjusting his glasses as to not fully look in Kasamatsu’s direction. “I haven’t seen Kise all day but I heard that he was chased around for ages by his fangirls until he managed to hide himself somewhere. Maybe he’s not even on school grounds anymore.”

 

Kasamatsu rolled his eyes around once again as he took his cell phone from his pants’ pocket, furiously searching for Kise's phone number on the contact list. When he pressed on the dial button, both Nakamura and Hayakawa thought that a crack would appear on the touch screen, such had been the violence used on it.

 

One of his feet tapping the floor as he waited and waited for the call to connect, when Kasamatsu heard the click of the call being accepted, he opened his mouth to release a loud roar. “Kise, where the fuck are yo—“

 

_ “Shenpai... Ugh... I-I’m so glad you’re finally here...!” _ sobbed Kise almost right away, cutting short Kasamatsu’s admonishment.  _ “I’m going to die! You have to help me...! Senpai... Senpai... Please come quickly, Kasamatsu-senpai!!” _

 

“Just tell me where you are and I’ll meet with you there,” sighed Kasamatsu, his anger soothing down by the clear messy state that Kise was in right now – he knew that Kise could give use to his crocodile tears without any hesitation but he also knew that he always tried to maintain a cool facade when dealing with everyone, Kasamatsu included. He was anything but cool right now, his loud sobs and whimpering resounding on his ear from the other side of the call. “Hm... Hm... I’ll be there in ten minutes. Stay there and don’t fucking move around! I think it would be a pain in the ass right now if someone saw you, from what Nakamura told me.”

 

Right after he finished talking, Kasamatsu ended the call and returned his cell phone to his pants’ pocket, looking over in the two younger male’s direction while releasing yet another loud exasperated sigh.

 

“I’ll be bringing your ace back now,” announced Kasamatsu, turning around on his heels to walk towards the access door and putting his shoes back on. “Continue with the practice that I’ll solve whatever troublesome shit that dumbass caused.”

 

“We’re counting on you, Kasamatsu-san,” acknowledged Nakamura and Hayakawa at the same time, giving a quick bow to the older male before also turning around and resuming with their stretching.

 

_ This fucking idiot! I swear I will beat the living lights out of him, whatever excuse he may give me for whatever shit is happening right now!, _ inwardly fumed Kasamatsu as he quickly strode towards one of the gyms used for PE classes (a smart move from the blondie, he had to admit, since there were no PE classes on the first day of a new school year and the opening ceremony usually was held in a bigger and more modern gym building).

 

“Hey, Kise!” roared Kasamatsu while he opened the doors of the gym, being greeted by nothing but a shadowy ambience and silence. An eyebrow slightly arched as he scanned his surroundings with his steel blue eyes, Kasamatsu sighed and walked towards the storage room. Had Kise been so panicky at the moment of his hiding that he resorted to that dark, stuffy location with only god knows whatever ridiculous number of disgusting insects?

 

Kasamatsu softly opened the storage room door, illuminating the entrance just a little bit with sunlight. He felt a small shiver run down his spine at how creepy-looking the insides of the small division where, filled with dark shadows that seemed to move by themselves with every eye movement that he did.

 

“Kise?” called Kasamatsu, hesitantly stepping inside of the room, his eyes cautiously taking in every imaginary movement that he thought he saw.

 

“Senpai...” weakly called a voice from deep inside of the storage room, making Kasamatsu flinch just the slightest at it.

 

Kasamatsu gathered his wits and confidently marched deeper inside of the division until he bumped into a cave-like construction, built with materials that could be found inside of a school gym or any other sports facility. In the middle of the makeshift cave was a dark shadow that resembled an extremely large dog, its fluffy tail waving around just the slightest.

 

“What the fuc—“ started Kasamatsu but, all of a sudden, the large shadow charged forward in his direction, jumping hard on him and throwing him down even harder on the unprotected cement floor. “Ouch!”

 

What Kasamatsu saw on top of him shocked him more than any monster or beast could have.

 

“...Kise?” hesitantly called Kasamatsu, lifting his head from the floor a little bit to peek at the blonde head leaning against his body, two furry ears that trembled like leaves on it.

 

“Senpai... Please help me...” whimpered Kise, also lifting his head from the protectiveness of Kasamatsu’s chest and looking deep into his eyes with tear-stained golden ones. “I-I think I’m going to die if things remain like this!”

 

“O-Okay, but get out of on top of me,” acknowledged Kasamatsu, wiggling his body around underneath the heavy weight that Kise was putting on him. “I can’t help you with whatever shit this is if I’m being squashed by your big ass dead weight.”

 

“I don’t want to,” immediately complained Kise, closing his arms around Kasamatsu’s torso and tightly hugging him. “I bet that if I let you go right now, you will just go back to your own life and won’t meet with me for weeks to no end nor answer my phone calls or texts...”

 

“...I already said that I would help you, didn’t I?” pointed out Kasamatsu, the side of his head leaning on the cold floor as he avoided looking to Kise because to the furry ears tickling at his skin – though that was obviously another excuse. Why was Kise an idiot most of the time but so very sharp when it came to this sort of thing, especially in the less convenient ways for Kasamatsuthe black haired male?

 

“You did but... I bet you are going to laugh about me and take photos of me to make fun of me afterwards,” cried Kise, his golden eyes once again releasing fat tears that were moistening Kasamatsu's upper clothes.

 

“You made a complete fool of yourself for a whole year,” sighed Kasamatsu, rolling his eyes around just the slightest. “It’s not because now you’re... a dog, I suppose? That I will act any differently or bully you.”

 

“You already bullied me plenty in the—“ yelped Kise, lifting his face from Kasamatsu’s chest to look over in his direction, but he came to a sudden stop, his eyes open in surprise. “Senpai... Somehow...”

 

Kise abruptly dropped his face back to Kasamatsu’s body, giving long sniffs to his clothes and to his exposed neck.

 

“Wai— What the fuck are you doing!?” roared Kasamatsu, a  dark red blush, masked by the shadowy ambience of the storage room, appearing all over his features as Kise breathed deep against the side of his neck, releasing the hot air inside of his lungs against his skin afterwards.

 

“Kasamatsu-senpai, you smell so delicious~” purred Kise, the tip of his nose softly trailing the side of Kasamatsu’s neck and stopping behind his ear, where he once again inhaled and then exhaled in relish. “I feel like eating you up in one bite right this mome— OUCH!!”

 

“Just what the fuck do you think you’re doing  _ and _ saying, you shitty dog!?” admonished Kasamatsu after having lifted his left leg and kneed Kise with all the strength that he still had on his body. He gave a push to Kise’s shoulders and forced him to roll out of on top of his body, quickly getting up and putting some distance between the two of them as soon as the weight disappeared.

 

“No, wait! Senpai, I was just— OW!” tried to explain Kise, but Kasamatsu gave yet another kick to his back, letting his feet remain there and keep his body in a crouched down position.

 

“I don’t know if having dog ears and tail is messing around with your stupid ass brain, but humans don’t go around sniffing one another!” continued admonishing Kasamatsu, giving a couple more of kicks to Kise’s back.

 

“My brain is just – ouch! – fine!” insisted Kise, turning his head around to look at Kasamatsu with small beads of tears decorating the corner of his eyes. “It’s your fault here, Senpai, not mine!”

 

“HUH!? How the hell it’s my fault that you’re acting like a fucking dog in heat!?” roared Kasamatsu, giving one more powerful kick to Kise’s back and making him fall forward even closer to the floor. And from that position, Kasamatsu noticed yet another dog-like action from Kise's body. “What the...? I’m kicking you here, Kise! Why the fuck is your tail wagging around, you pervert!?”

 

“It’s your fault~” whined Kise, pushing his body up to an all fours position the floor, his golden tail raised high in the air and wagging from one side to the other with extremely energetic motions. “You never touch me, Senpai! That’s why when you kick me or punch me or beat me up, I can’t help but feel happy since you are touching my body from your own free will!”

 

“J... Just die, you fucking masochist!” loudly yelled Kasamatsu, giving a final kick to Kise’s back before turning around on his heels and starting to walk out of the storage room, his face burning like a furnace going out of control.

 

“Senpai, w-wait!” requested Kise, quickly motioning his body to a standing position and running after Kasamatsu. “Where are you going? You said you were going to help me!”

 

“I don’t care anymore! Solve it by yourself!” announced Kasamatsu, not even turning back to look at Kise as he directed those words at him.

 

“I can’t solve it alone and that’s the problem!” countered Kise, catching up with Kasamatsu as soon as they had crossed half of the gym. He lunged his hand forward and took hold of Kasamatsu’s upper arm, pulling him back towards his body and tightly wrapping his arms around his chest. “I may be an idiot but I would have already solved this if I could do it all by myself. It’s useless if you don’t help me, Senpai. I need you.”

 

“I-I get it...! Now let go!” yelped Kasamatsu, wiggling his body around to try to lessen the hold Kise’s arms had around his torso.

 

“No. Just stay like this and let me finish,” said Kise, pulling Kasamatsu even closer against his chest. He gulped down hard, feeling his heart racing one million miles per hour inside of his ribcage – the thought that Kasamatsu would be able to feel his quickened heartbeat crossed his mind for a fraction of a second but the words he was about to say were far more important at that moment than his own embarrassment. “I met with my former teammates and because of a stupid game, we were cursed. That’s why I have dog ears and tail right now. That’s why Aominecchi thinks he’s a girl and Murasakibaracchi is of the size of a soda can, Midorimacchi is constantly on death’s doors due to bad luck and Akashicchi is a pain in the ass to understand because he can only speak in idioms! I have no idea what is Kurokocchi’s curse though... But that’s not the point! There’s only one way to break the curse.”

 

“...Which is?” asked Kasamatsu, trying his best to keep the heavy blush painting his whole features in bright red from being seen by Kise.

 

“Senpai... I... About you, I’m—“ started Kise, his love confession almost rolling out of his tongue... if his brain hadn’t released a sudden unbearable urge to sink his teeth on Kasamatsu’s flesh and gnaw at the source of the appetizing scent that was making his mouth water. And such was what he did in midsentence, his teeth burying themselves on the back of Kasamatsu’s neck and strongly sucking at it, his tongue giving a long and wet lick to the wonderfully supple skin.

 

“...!!!” Too shocked with Kise’s unexpected actions to even vocalize any word or even a sound, Kasamatsu’s face fully exploded in a myriad of shades of red, his body trembling as Kise softly chewed on the piece of flesh that he was biting into. “D... D... DIE ALREADY, KISE!!”

 

“Ouch~!!!!!!!!!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mafy's Info:  
> [Twitter](https://twitter.com/Mafy_mod)  
> [Tumblr](http://mafymod.tumblr.com/)  
> [Ko-fi](https://ko-fi.com/I2I49KM4)  
> You can show your support for my fanfictions and help me achieve my goals of self-publication for original stories in Ko-fi!


	17. Useless and Disastrous

A loud whistling sound resounded through the gym currently occupied by Seirin basketball club, the sound of sports shoes scraping against the floor coming to a total halt and filling the large area with only the sound of heavy breathing. All of the basketball players immediately surrounded their female coach, her skipping in their direction making obvious what she was about to announce.

 

“Guys, Rakuzan is here~” said Riko with a sing-song voice, doing an overdramatic movement with her body and arms to point to the main entrance of the gym, a group of students appearing there from the corridor that brought them from the locker rooms area. “So~ As I said this morning~ If you lose... you’re dead~”

 

“Y-Yes...” acknowledged the basketball team in unison, feeling yet another shudder run down their spines as they saw the movement that the brunette had done with her hand, her thumb slicing through her throat, as an even bigger warning than her words.

 

“We have done our warming up exercises, so it’s time to provide some space so that Rakuzan can do th—“ started directing Riko, but a sudden fluff of light blue appeared right in front of her eyes from out of nowhere, startling her. “Jesus Christ, Kuroko-kun! I was the whole break time away from you. Give some sort of warning when you get close until I get used to your misdirection once again...!”

 

“I apologize, Riko-san,” said Kuroko, giving a quick bow with his head to his coach while his eyes continuously stole glances to the group coming inside, his heart rhythm echoing in his head with the expectation of seeing a certain player – at the same time, he deeply dreaded what would happen when he first laid his eyes on him. “Um... Would you mind if I continued with my warming ups for a little bit longer while Rakuzan is doing theirs? I don’t mind doing it outside of the gym, to give them the necessary space.”

 

“Like hell you will! Overwork yourself before we even really started and we won’t be able to use one of our key players for victory when we really need him,” immediately rejected Riko, shaking her head furiously at the bluenette’s words. “Just sit on the bench and drink your energy drink, because we all know you are going to need loads of it for the whole week.”

 

_ I think so too, _ inwardly cringed Kuroko, his shoulders slumping down as he slowly paced to the bench and sat there, his eyes stuck to the floor so that he would have some guarantees that he would  _ not _ see the person that he wanted to see the most while wanting to avoid him like the plague.

 

“Hello, Seirin,” greeted Akashi, the captain of Rakuzan High School’s basketball team, a soft smile on his features as he crossed the gym and approached the group of enemy players. “I hope that this joint practice will be the best of both worlds for our teams. I expect that none of us will cut corners throughout this week and let sleeping dogs lie in regard to the events of last year’s Winter Cup.”

 

“Hey, Riko...” whispered Hyuuga to the female coach, an eyebrow slightly arched as he closely observed Akashi. “Isn’t Akashi talking kind of funny right now?”

 

“Ah... He was talking like that too, last night, when he suddenly called me to arrange this week-long joint practice,” said Riko also in the form of a whisper. She quickly shrugged her shoulders, however, and added, “You know that all of the members of the Generation of Miracles are weird and make incomprehensible actions for us mere mortals. Kuroko-kun, included, apparently...”

 

Following Riko’s line of vision, Hyuuga looked over to the bench appointed to their team, where Kuroko was currently bent over, his face buried against the wooden surface normally used to sit down. “I-Is he feeling okay over there, Kagami?”

 

“Ah... Maybe...?” answered Kagami almost in the form of a question, since not even he was sure of Kuroko's current condition. He suspected that he was most likely starting to feel to effects of his curse – again, part of him felt really bad about his current circumstances, the other (maybe bigger than the former) was deeply enjoying how the usual expressionless prick was acting due to his crush on another individual.

 

“Hello, Kuroko,” greeted Akashi, all smiles as he stopped near the crouched down bluenette.

 

_ I do not have an erection right now. I do not have an erection right now. I do not have an erection right now, _ inwardly chanted Kuroko, feeling his face burst into flames as heat starting pooling down on the base of his abdomen, a giddy sensation spreading through his whole body every time he heard Akashi’s voice.

 

“H-Hello, Akashi-kun,” answered Kuroko, his voice slightly muffled by his position against the surface of the bench, his arms closing more tightly against his face to keep it well hidden from Akashi and, honestly, every single basketball player inside of the gym.

 

“Are you perhaps feeling under the weather once again, Kuroko?” asked Akashi, taking a couple of steps closer to Kuroko and lowering his body so that he could more closely observe him trying to hide through the means of the bench. “That’s not a once in a blue moon event but it has been happening all the time lately. Do you need a hand once again?”

 

“I-I don’— Ngh...!” readily started denying Kuroko, his face whipping out of its hidden place, but as soon as he saw Akashi’s face extremely close to his own, he was forced to painfully bite onto his lower lip to avoid an aroused groan from escaping his throat. “P-Please leave me b-be for now, A-Akashi-kun...”

 

“...” Akashi observed how Kuroko quickly returned to his little hideout against the bench, his body trembling just the slightest, and released a soft sigh, propelling his body up once again afterwards. “I’ll keep myself at bay, then.”

 

Turning around on his heels, Akashi started walking back to his own team, passing by Kuroko’s current light and partner in basketball, Kagami, who had been observing them from the distance. He was forced to stop, however, when Kagami also started walking towards him.

 

“I don’t mean to be rude or anything, but what exactly are you planning, Akashi?” asked Kagami, his arms crossing over his chest as he looked at Akashi with an eyebrow arched in suspicion. He took a quick glance around their surroundings, seeing if there was anyone in ear shot, and then whispered, covering his mouth slightly with his hand, “Why haven’t you broken your curse already?”

 

_ And Kuroko’s _ , would have liked to add Kagami, but since he still wasn’t sure if Akashi knew of Kuroko’s feelings for him or not, he decided to stay quiet on it, fearing that he would make Kuroko’s life even more miserable right now.

 

“A penny for my thoughts, huh...” said Akashi, chuckling softly at the worried expression on Kagami’s face. He knew that the concern was aimed towards Kuroko, not him, but it still made him happy that, despite the way they had first met, Kagami still could house such gentle emotions towards him. “I don’t want to continuously go back to the drawing board but to simply cut the mustard, so I can’t put all of my eggs in one basket. It takes two to tango and Kuroko isn’t able to see eye to eye right now. But you are barking up the wrong tree if you think I will beat around the bush.”

 

“I... I’m going to pretend I understood everything you just said...” mumbled Kagami, straightening his body with awkward movements as he softly scratched the back of his neck, a complex demeanour on his features as he tried to make any sense of Akashi’s words.

 

“Basically, Sei-chan said that you don’t have to worry about anything~” explained Mibuchi Reo, a soft smile on his face as he stopped beside the captain of his basketball team. “He will definitely make sure that Cupid’s arrow hits the right person <3 Right, Sei-chan?”

 

“Yes,” acknowledged Akashi, also smiling back to his teammate. He looked back to Kagami, offered a quick bow and turned around on his heels to finally go provide his own team with the directions of what they were supposed to do right now, together with Rakuzan’s coach.

 

“You know about the... curse?” asked Kagami, directing his words now to Mibuchi, who had remained in the same spot after Akashi returned to his team.

 

“Yes, Sei-chan told me about it.  He needs help to communicate with most of our teammates, or otherwise, they would look at him as dumbstruck as you did just now,” explained Mibuchi, a kind smile on his lips. He sighed and then turned his body around, his arms dancing around his torso as he almost cat-walked to his team. “I don’t know what is Kuroko-chan’s curse, but this should be an interesting week, the way he’s acting right now~”

 

“...I still don’t get if he’s a nice guy or a fucking evil diva...” sighed Kagami, also turning around and going back to his teammates too, his head slightly tilted to the left as he still tried to make sense of Akashi’s words in his... well, not so bright brain.

 

-.-

 

“Have you all being relaxing and doing nothing at all after having won the Winter Cup?” sarcastically asked Shirogane Eiji, a mocking smirk on his face as he took a quick peek to the scoring board of the first practice game between Seirin and Rakuzan – they were on the second quarter of the first half and Rakuzan was already winning by doubling Seirin’s score. “Or was it really only a fluke that you won that game?”

 

“...” Riko painfully bit down the inside of her cheek, her hands clenching into fists as she continued to observe the terrible game happening right in front of her eyes. All of Seirin main players were doing their jobs properly – Hyuuga scored quick three-pointers, Izuki used his eagle eye to connect the passes and organize the moves of the team, Mitobe was doing a great job holding the inside and grabbing the rebounds, Kagami was jumping high and scoring breath-taking dunks, one after the other – but Kuroko was completely useless.

 

He had missed more than half of the passes he had given to his teammates, got the ball stolen pretty much the remaining half, and every time he tried to use his Phantom Shot, Riko’s heart squeezed terribly at the fact that the ball didn’t even touch the rim of the basket – it simply didn’t get even 5 meters near it... Kuroko was currently more of a dead weight than the phantom ace of Seirin and former sixth man of Teikou.

 

But if she made a substitution right now, with Kiyoshi away in America for his rehabilitation on his knee, she had no idea how the team would be able to deal with Rakuzan and Akashi’s Emperor Eye. It seemed that, even though Kuroko was  _ useless _ right now, Akashi still couldn’t follow his movements and  _ useless _ passes, giving Seirin the opportunity of maybe turning the game around in their favour.

 

Risky way of thinking, without a doubt, but it was the only way she could see Seirin winning this first match.

 

Roaring loudly, Kagami grabbed the basketball with one of his hands and forcibly slammed it inside of the rim, his frustration starting to show on his gameplay. Panting heavily as his feet touched the floor once again, he turned around and angrily looked over in Kurokoe’s direction, who was panting even harder than he was, his features gone completely red as he remained half crouched down while standing up, eyes closed to keep his concentration.

 

Kagami was already aware that Kuroko’s basketball style would get slightly affected by his curse, especially since they were playing against the person who brought out the effects of the curse, but he wasn’t expecting this disaster. One of his hands was getting black and blue with bruises due to the immeasurable strength put behind his passes (when they actually connected) and he had lost count of how many times he had to hurriedly cover up the wrong trajectory of a pass by moving back and forward.

 

Playing with Kuroko right now was simply exhausting, and he would have told him that if he didn’t know that Kuroko, out of everyone there in the court, knew it even better. It showed on the soft crease of his brows that he was getting just as frustrated as Kagami about the flow of the game, with the large sense of guilt that it was his fault that it was unfolding like that eating at him.

 

_ Forget about having fun with the unusual amount of facial expressions that I get to see, I want Kuroko to break his curse right this moment or I feel I will fucking punch him until he does!, _ inwardly yelled Kagami, loudly clicking his tongue as he quickly wiped the sweat running down his face.

 

“Haa... Haa...” Panting wildly, Kuroko took a couple of shaky steps forward and took a glance around the whole court, eyes seeking his teammates in order to position himself in a key area and finally manage to make a successful pass to any of them.

 

The opportunity soon came when Izuki (clearly hesitantly) made a pass towards him. He pulled his elbow back, his hand taking on the stance to use Ignite Pass and make the ball reach the other side of the court, where Kagami was already positioned on. However, a flash of red appeared out of nowhere in front of him, his teal eyes making direct contact with Akashi’s red ones as he tried to prevent the pass from being accomplished.

 

The only words that could describe what Kuroko felt at that moment was a Shinkansen made of sexual arousal hitting his groin and his brain fully shutting down its main primal functions except the need to procreate.

 

“BUGYAHH...!!” loudly yelped Kagami when a ball was suddenly slammed against his face, his body heavily falling to the ground and making a wave of deep silence hit the whole gym at the cry of pain that escaped his throat. Slowly motioning his upper body to a sitting position on the floor, Kagami’s eyes were that of a wrathful demon, two red lines of blood flowing down from his nostrils. “Fuck you, Kuroko, you bastard! Get your ass here so I can slam a basketball on your mug to— Eh...?”

 

When Kagami looked over in the direction where the ball had come from, he only found Akashi there, his head slightly tilted as he peered over on his direction with a concerned look that masked the amusement that he truly felt. No signs whatsoever of Kuroko Tetsuya.

 

The loud sound of a whistle echoed through the whole gym and the female coach of Seirin basketball club got up from the bench, together with Koganei, ready to step inside of the already lost game.

 

“Seirin, change! Number 11 for number 6!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mafy's Info:  
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> You can show your support for my fanfictions and help me achieve my goals of self-publication for original stories in Ko-fi!


	18. Fantasy? Reality? Both or None?

Wobbling around as he crossed the corridor that connected the gym to the few locker rooms that the building housed, Kuroko tightly shut his mouth closed with one of his hands while the other tried to conceal the bulge in his crotch area sticking out of his training shorts by pulling down his t-shirt. His scattered movements made the trip to the basketball team’s locker room unbearably long and slow, every step that he gave forward making a soft whimper escape his throat due to the friction of his soaked with body fluids underwear against his leaking, hard cock.

 

As soon as he managed to stumble inside of the locker room, Kuroko’s legs finally gave out and he painfully fell on the floor, his body so hot and his breathing rhythm so heavy that he wished that someone would drown him in the Arctic ocean and put an end to his misery.

 

Trembling hands plastered against the ground and nails scratching softly at the hard surface, he tried to straighten his body enough to crawl over to the shower area and get the cold water that his body so needed as a substitute to what Kuroko actually required to quench his insatiable sexual desire.

 

“Haa... Ngh... Haa...” Every inch that Kuroko managed to cross by forcing his body to cooperate in accordance with his slow-paced trip to the shower room was a painful stab to his hard shaft. “Ngh... Ah... Ha...”

 

Kuroko needed to find some relief as soon as possible. He needed to put an end to his misery right that instant or he would drive himself crazy with the overbearing feeling of never-ending self-restraint and the constant suppression and denial of his physical needs.

 

The moment his back touched the cold tiles of one of the shower stalls’ wall, Kuroko clumsily motioned one of his hands upwards, patting the wall in search for the cold water handle. As soon as his finger lightly scrapped his goal, freezing cold water started to rain down on him, his body shivering at the sudden coldness soaking his smouldering hot flesh and skin.

 

His driven by pleasure mind didn’t let him think twice before his hands hurriedly pulled down his training shorts and underwear just the slightest and freed his erection, a soft groan being released from his vocal cords at the soft touch of the cold water contrasting with the hotness of his fingers and palm as they were wrapped around his length and started stroking it up and down.

 

“Ngh... Ahh—“ moaned Kuroko, his voice echoing through the empty shower room and fuelling his notion that he was completely alone at that moment. He could moan and scream as loudly as he wished and no one would hear him. He could say whatever he wanted that absolutely no one would hear his words. “Ahh! Ak— Akashi-kun...!”

 

As if calling the redhead’s name came as the key that unlocked all of his bottled up desire since the moment Rakuzan basketball team stepped inside of the gym, Kuroko threw his head backwards, leaning it over on the tile wall as the movements of his hand quickened considerably, more precum dribbling down his length and smearing his hand in a diluted milky white and sticky liquid.

 

“Akashi-kun... Ahh! A-Akashi-kun!” unrestrictedly moaned and whimpered Kuroko, his eyes stuck to the open door of the stall as if waiting for someone to show up. He  _ wanted _ someone to show up – he had been calling his name again and again in between his mewls of half-satisfying pleasure. But he knew that such would only ever happen in his delusions – there was absolutely no way that  _ the _ Akashi Seijuurou would ever leave a basketball match in the middle, him being on the winning team or not. “Ahh... Haa... Ngh! Akashi...kun...! Ahhh!”

 

_ Ahh... See? Only in my delusions..., _ inwardly mumbled Kuroko as his half-lidded eyes caught a reddish shadow coming closer to the shower stall he was currently inside of.  _ Ahh... I don’t care anymore. I just want Akashi-kun so badly that it doesn’t matter anymore if it’s a prank created by my needy brain or the real deal... _

 

In the midst of his fantasy, Kuroko’s pale cheek was softly caressed, his features gently cupped to bring his face closer to the redhead’s, their lips readily colliding against one another with desperate hunger. And it felt ridiculously good, the way Akashi’s tongue playfully rubbed against his, lightly suckling and nibbling with his front teeth on the muscular organ that lustfully sought to get more of the redhead’s taste.

 

The deafening beating of his heart against his ribcage, which could be heard echoing inside of his eardrum. His hand tightly held against his hard cock by the slightly bigger hand that fastened even further his movements and augmented his pleasure in tandem. The two sets of mouths that hungrily feasted on each other’s saliva.

 

All of it felt good. Delusion, fantasy, whatever name it could have or not, all that was happening to his body felt good. Numbingly good.  _ Dangerously  _ good.  _ Addictively _ good.

 

“Ahh! Akashi...kun...” moaned Kuroko against the imaginary mouth kissing him. His free hand motioned up in the air, getting a hold of the back of the redhead’s neck and bringing him closer to his body. “Mmnh... Haa... A-Akashi-kun... I— Ahh!”

 

When fantasy-Akashi closed his hand around Kuroko’s and hastened their pumping motions once again, his whole body tingled in rapture, which loudly screamed at him to give it up and just release every single drop of desire he had been holding deep inside of him all at once.

 

No, not just his desire but  _ everything _ that he had been holding back.

 

“Ahh—! Akashi-kun...!” loudly moaned Kuroko, his nails digging at the redhead’s neck as he felt his whole body trembling at his incoming climax. “Seijuurou, I lo— Ahhhh!”

 

The moment his release was achieved, Kuroko’s vision switched from the shower stall to complete white. A white so pure and shiny that one would have thought that he was ascending to Heaven after a martyr’s death, and not due to letting his consciousness slip between his fingers once again at Akashi’s touch, even if this time it had been nothing but a delusion of his.

 

-.-

 

His body squirming around against the warm blanket placed on top of his body, Kuroko turned around on the mattress, softly trying to hide his half asleep features from the soft light hitting him. When he forced himself to open one of his teal eyes, he found himself in a location far from similar to the last place he remembered being in.

 

He wasn’t inside of a shower stall. He wasn’t inside of the basketball team’s locker room, not even inside of the gym. His surroundings resembled that of an infirmary – curiously, the very same infirmary that was placed on the second floor of Seirin High School’s main building.

 

“...Eh? Eh?” Completely lost on what was happening right now, Kuroko motioned his body up to a sitting position on the bed he had been resting on. When he looked down on himself, he saw that he was once again wearing his school uniform, albeit the school jacket being missing and laid on top of the lower half of the bed.

 

_ W-What’s going on...?, _ inwardly asked Kuroko, his brain furiously circling around in hopes to find some sort of explanation to what exactly was succeeding at this precise moment.  _ I... I was playing a match against Rakuzan... But because of the curse, I had to leave... Then I went to the locker room, where I... _

 

“...!” His face exploding in a myriad of shades of red, Kuroko hastily covered his features with his hands, his mouth suddenly getting dry and heart speeding up without further warning. His body fell backwards, his back hitting the bed with a muted thud. “Ugh...! I want to die... This far exceeds what is normal for a male high school student to go through, whatever level of sexual excitement they may display...”

 

“Um... For you to be groaning and moaning that loudly, it must mean you’re awake, huh...” hesitantly said Kagami, his head appearing from between the closed curtains around the infirmary bed. When he indeed saw Kuroko all wrapped up on the blanket, protectively hiding his face in shame, he couldn’t help but release a soft sigh and walk closer to the bed, where he sat down on. “I don’t want to make you feel worse than you already do... but we lost the game. We also lost the second and third match that we did after you suddenly disappeared into thin air.”

 

“I see...” softly breathed Kuroko, shrinking his body underneath the blanket to form a depressed human ball. He sighed. “Thank you, Kagami-kun.”

 

“Huh? Thank you?” repeated Kagami, an eyebrow getting arched on his forehead as he wondered where the hell those words were coming from. “What are you thanking me for?”

 

“I mean... You were the one who took me out of the shower stall, dressed me and took me here, right?” said Kuroko, his face once again burning in embarrassment only at the fact that he had allowed his teammate and light to see him in such an immoral way and even force him to clean up after his mess. “So, than—“

 

“I didn’t do anything,” immediately cut off Kagami, averting looking at Kuroko as he lightly scratched the back of his head.

 

“Eh...?”

 

“I just came here after practice ended to give you your stuff,” continued Kagami, not exactly sure of how he should put his words without causing Kuroko to start panicking once again. “And... it was Akashi that told me you were here. It was also him that went to talk with Coach over allowing you to take a leave for the rest of the practice time. Get ready for 10 times the training tomorrow, was what Coach told me to tell you.”

 

“Eh!?” uncharacteristically yelped Kuroko, his body jumping upwards from underneath of the blanket and into a sitting position, his mouth gaping wide open as he stared in disbelief at Kagami. “P-Please tell me y-you’re joking, Kagami-kun.”

 

“Um... I’m not...” mumbled Kagami, his cheeks slightly smeared in pink as he pointed at Kuroko with his index finger, leading it back to his own neck where he softly tapped it to indicate something on it – not on his neck, but on Kuroko’s.

 

“Eh?” Kuroko unconsciously took his hands to his neck, the pads of his fingers softly tracing the length of his neck as they searched what whatever it was that Kagami had pointed at. He didn’t feel anything... hence, it was  _ something _ that couldn’t be felt.

 

As quickly as a stumbling arrow, Kuroko awkwardly got up from the bed, pulling the blanket together with him as it got caught up in the momentum of his movements, and made a beeline to the mirror placed on top of the washing basin, whose purpose was for the disinfection of the nurse’s hands before applying medical treatment to any student.

 

“—!” A silent scream escaped Kuroko’s throat when he looked in the mirror and saw a big red bite mark on the base of his neck, near to the place which connected to his shoulder. “I... I... I want to die...!”

 

_ It wasn’t a delusion... It wasn’t a fantasy... Akashi-kun truly put in practice what he told me during last night’s phone call... _

 

“Cheer up, Kuro-chin,” said Murasakibara, his tiny frame popping out of Kagami’s school bag, his small hands holding a chocolate chips cookie that had almost twice the size of his head. “It’s not like I will tell anyone how much you were screaming Aka-chin’s name while inside of the shower area.”

 

“Ugh... I want... I  _ need _ this to end...” beckoned Kuroko, dropping his body down on the floor and tightly crouching his body over himself, his arms wrapped around his head as he pressed his blushing face against his knees. “As soon as possible...”

 

“Then hurry the hell up and confess to Akashi,” sighed Kagami, a vein popping out on his forehead. “Coach is not the only one that’s angry at you, you know? I would have stuffed a basketball in your face already while you were sleeping if it wasn’t for the fact that I know that you couldn’t really avoid what happened. But that doesn’t mean I will tolerate this! Hurry up and confess to Akashi! Do it quickly! Tomorrow! Or even today! Just spare me the fucking abuse through the means of basketballs against my gut or my face!!”

 

“It’s not as easy as you think it i—“ started mumbling Kuroko but his words were cut off when a strong hand gripped the top of his head and pulled it upwards from its hideout.

 

“Tomorrow or today,” menacingly said Kagami, the intensity of his red eyes almost akin to a glare. “That’s the time limit that you have to confess to that sadistic bastard. You do it on your own or I swear to god that I will take measures with my own hands and force you to do it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mafy's Info:  
> [Twitter](https://twitter.com/Mafy_mod)  
> [Tumblr](http://mafymod.tumblr.com/)  
> [Ko-fi](https://ko-fi.com/I2I49KM4)  
> You can show your support for my fanfictions and help me achieve my goals of self-publication for original stories in Ko-fi!


	19. Hit and Run

“That damn pipsqueak...” grumbled Kagami, holding onto his school bag over his shoulder as he slowly walked towards Seirin high school’s main gate. “With his perpetual expressionlessness, you would think he doesn’t cause trouble to anyone... But there he is! Stuffing basketballs on my body during important practice matches because he can’t keep it in his pants... I don’t even get how his curse took on such ways!? Shouldn’t he have become completely invisible or something along those lines!?”

 

“K-Kagami-chan!!” suddenly called a familiar male voice, though the tone used to say his name was far less aggressive and grumpy than it usually sounded like. When Kagami took a closer look to the front gate, he could find Aomine there, right in the middle of the open exit. His face, however, was unusually smeared with red in the midst of his tanned features, his body taking on a stance that lacked the usual self-confidence of his panther-like self. “Um... Ah... C-Can I talk with you for a little bit...?”

 

“...” The hand holding onto the school bag falling from on top of his shoulder to the side of his body, Kagami carefully observed Aomine, his chest being once again painfully squeezed at the sight. Aomine was, most likely, resorting to his help so that he could confess to the very same pipsqueak that a couple of hours ago was sporting a boner because of another guy. “S-Sure. What do you want to talk about?”

 

“U-Um... The thing is...” started Aomine, his fingers fiddling around with the hem of his school jacket as he averted looking directly to Kagami. Closing his eyes tightly and grabbing into his clothes like the words he was about to throw could only exit his vocal cords if he had some external help or safety blanket around, he opened his mouth and yelled at the top of his lungs. “P-Please go on a date with me, Kagami-chan!!!”

 

“...”

 

_ W-What the hell is this situation supposed to be...? _ , inwardly started freaking out Kagami, his body completely frozen in place as his flabbergasted red eyes continued locked on Aomine, who was slightly bowing his head down at him.  _ Aomine... asked me out on a date? Huh? Just... what the heck...!? Did his brain completely fry while he tried to think up a way to confess to Kur— ...Wait... Is he asking me on a date so that he can know what to do and how he should act when he asks Kuroko to go on a date with him...? Is he using me as a... trial date? _

 

“Ah... I-I guess...” hesitantly answered Kagami, rubbing the back of his neck as he averted making eye contact with Aomine. Even though he knew he was being used, why was he feeling so damn guilty over his acknowledgment to participate in this plan? Why was he feeling so freaking happy over the prospect of going on a date with Aomine when he knew that such a place wasn’t meant for him, but for Kuroko? “I-It’s not like I have anything to do today so... I can t-tag along with you...”

 

“Really!?” cheerfully yelped Aomine, bursting into a furious run towards Kagami and taking a hold of his hands. His face got so close to Kagami’s that he could feel the soft breath tickling his skin. “You’ll go on a date with me, Kagami-chan!? Really really!?”

 

“I...” Kagami tried to speak but he was forced to swallow down his words as he felt his whole face starting to heat up at the extreme lack of space between his face and Aomine’s. Did his girl version never hear of freaking personal space!? “I... already said I would, didn’t I?”

 

“Yay~” Pulling his upper body back to a straight standing position, Aomine gave a quick jump and twirled his body around, his arms open as he happily walked back to outside of the school. “What are you waiting for then, Kagami-chan? Let’s get going and party around town like crazy~”

 

Releasing a soft sigh, Kagami took a better hold to his school bag, a grip so strong that his knuckles turned pure white, and started following right behind the ecstatic tanned male (if he could really be addressed with such gender right now).

 

-.-

 

Throughout the whole evening, since the moment classes ended to well past dinner time, both Kagami and Aomine paced around the town centre, visiting the most varied of places that they mutually agreed to be on the date-ish side.

 

Entering a couple of clothes stores (it embarrassed the heck out of Kagami when Aomine dragged him into a female underwear shop and started putting bra after bra on top of his bust, asking him which one looked the best on his flat – albeit muscular – chest), went to take a quick bite inside of a karaoke and started a noisy competition over who could make the other crack up with laughter first by singing ridiculous songs (Aomine had won by singing AKB48’s “LOVE TRIP” through the means of exaggerated dancing movements, most likely brought forward by his girl persona) and then went to enjoy some more food, completely forgetful over the unhealthy snacks that they add devoured while singing, in a more classy coffee store (Kagami was honestly surprised of how much Aomine – girl version – liked to devour cake slices and other pastries, pretty much in a similar fashion to what he did with teriyaki hamburgers).

 

“Ahh~ I am so full that I think that my stomach is going to burst~!” cheerfully announced Aomine, stretching his arms over his head as they stepped outside of the coffee shop.

 

“And my wallet is extremely empty due to your bursting stomach...” sighed Kagami, rolling his eyes around. “Really, who the heck invites someone on a date and then halfway runs out of money?”

 

“But a date is something done between two people,” pointed out Aomine, dropping his arms to the sides of his body and puckering his lips in dissatisfaction over Kagami’s words. “I think it’s only fair if both pay for the expenses made.”

 

“Go invite someone else on a date with that mentality and you won’t get to waste a single yen,” grumbled Kagami, crossing his arms over his chest as he sideways looked at Aomine. “They will tell you to take a hike before you get to spend any money.”

 

“I don’t necessarily plan on going on dates with anyone except you...” softly whispered Aomine, turning his face on the opposite direction from where Kagami was standing.

 

“If you are the one doing the invitation, then it’s gentlemanly on your behalf to be the one affording all the expenses by you and your date,” explained Kagami, completely oblivious to Aomine’s previous words as he continued educating him on the arts of dating – not that he had that much experience himself. “It’s etiquette to do so, okay? Or else, they will think you are just a hoodlum hunting chicks to get some. Got it?”

 

“Yeeees~” grudgingly acknowledged Aomine, rolling his eyes around at Kagami’s admonishments. Really, just how stupid could Bakagami get, he wondered...? “Then, let’s go to one more place before the end of the date!”

 

“Where to?” asked Kagami, trying not to show his excitement over the date not having reached its ending just yet. Which was pretty stupid of him seeing as this date wasn’t even a real one but a ‘study trip’ that would help Aomine confess to Kuroko. He was seriously starting to wonder if he was just as masochistic as Kise was or if he was simply so in love with Aomine that he would forgive him even if he was being used in such a cruel and heartbreaking way, actually feeling happy over knowing that Aomine would finally confess his long-lasting love for Kuroko to the person himself.

 

“Hehe~ Where do you think to?” asked back Aomine, a happy grin showing on his features, sending his dark blue eyes alight with joy. “Bakagami-chan, just come!”

 

“W-Wait...!” yelped Kagami when Aomine grabbed his hand and started pulling him along, both of them quickly running towards the packed late evening streets of the town centre of that area of Tokyo. Nothing more could he say or ask, just simply run through the crowd while holding Aomine’s hand – not giving a care about surprised long glances and giggles from the onlookers.

 

After a good 20 minutes running around through the streets, both of them reached an extremely familiar area to either of the two.

 

_ This is... haa... the court where we first met..., _ inwardly reminisced Kagami, panting hard after the frenzied run around the town centre. After a long sigh to try to steady his breathing rhythm and shake off his tiredness, he straightened his body and looked over to Aomine, who was seemingly doing the same while facing backwards at him.

 

“Ah... Um... K-Kagami-chan!!” yelled Aomine all of a sudden, his voice unusually flustered. When he hastily turned his body around and looked at Kagami, his cheeks were slightly smeared in red, even with his tanned features masking the colouring.

 

“Y-Yes!” awkwardly acknowledged Kagami, his body jumping at being called out of the blue and immediate straightening into a stiff position.

 

“Um... Ah... I...” hesitantly started Aomine, his hands tightly gripping into the hem of his school uniform jacket once again, his gaze lowered to the floor out of sheer embarrassment over what he wanted to say at that moment. “I... What I mean is... You see... I... Ugh... I l-like you...! I’m in love with you! P-Please go out with me!”

 

“...” Kagami remained completely frozen at hearing that completely unexpected love confession. However, instead of feeling happy at hearing it, all he felt was a soul-shattering squeeze on his chest, his heart being cruelly torn apart at the sound of those words. “Ahh... Yes...”

 

“...!” Aomine readily lifted his gaze from the ground when he heard those soft grumbles, his dark blue eyes excitedly looking over to Kagami and a joyful smile on his lips. However, it was bound to fall back to the pits of disappointment and rejection when he saw Kagami massaging the back of his neck, a pained expression on his features as he avoided looking over in his direction.

 

“If you just correct that money thingy of yours and maintain all of the rest, I’m sure that everything will go well for you when you go on a date and confess to Kuroko, breaking your curse with it,” acknowledged Kagami, every single word coming out of his mouth tasting so very bitter and foul. “Yeah, I’m sure it will go well. So, first thing tomorrow, just go over to Kuroko and ask him on a date just like you did with me as a trial. He will go along with it if it’s— you...”

 

“Gh...” Painfully biting his lower lip, a clear river of tears ran down Aomine’s cheeks from his saddened blue eyes, his features showing a clear deep blow given to him on an emotional level. Clenching his hands into tight fists, he yelled, “You are such a big, fat idiot, Bakagami-chan!! I hate you!! I never want to see you again in my whole life, you stupid musclehead!!!!!”

 

“Eh...? Ah, wai—“ tried to call Kagami when the crying tanned male hastily turned around on his heels and started running out of the basketball court, one of his hands trying to clean the tears streaming down from his eyes. “A-Aomine...!”

 

_ Ehhhhh...? Just... What the heck is going on here? _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mafy's Info:  
> [Twitter](https://twitter.com/Mafy_mod)  
> [Tumblr](http://mafymod.tumblr.com/)  
> [Ko-fi](https://ko-fi.com/I2I49KM4)  
> You can show your support for my fanfictions and help me achieve my goals of self-publication for original stories in Ko-fi!


	20. War Brings About Concord

“If I were to give you a name right now,” started Murasakibara, a macaroon being munched by his tiny mouth and held in his tiny hands as he sideways glanced to Kagami. “It would be without a shadow of a doubt ‘insensitive asshole’.”

 

“Shut it! No one asked you for any opinion, now did they!?” roared Kagami, noisily slamming the wok he was using to cook some shrimp fried rice on the hob he was standing in front of. As he furiously mixed the rice and other ingredients with a spatula, he continuously grumbled, more to himself than to the tiny purple haired male sitting on top of an already half empty box of assorted macarons. “Shit, what the fuck is wrong with freaking Ahomine!? If someone should be pissed off here it’s me, who was used as a fucking trial date so that ‘Miss’ Aomine can go back to be ‘Mister’ Aomine! I wholeheartedly offered him my help, shattering my own heart in the process so that idiot can successfully confess to Kuroko and break his curse, but what did I get in return? A fucking ‘I hate you’ and ‘I don’t ever want to see you again’ slapped straight in the face. Kuroko’s passes in the gut have hurt me less than those words!!”

 

“Not only an ‘insensitive bastard’ but also ‘clueless’ and ‘dense’...” grumbled Murasakibara, rolling his bead-sized purple eyes around and releasing an exasperated sigh afterwards. Now that he understood the position that Kagami had in this whole story, he couldn’t help but sympathize with his former teammate and with the idiotic redhead. By the date invitation and his reactions before and throughout it, it was more than obvious that Aomine was in love with Kagami – and it seemed that Kagami also felt the exact same way towards him. “Ugh... Why the heck did things end up like this then...?”

 

“Hey, Murasakibara, enough sweets and eat some actual food,” said Kagami, turning off the hob with a little bit more strength than usual and taking the wok to the table that he had set for one (and a half). “Dinner’s ready and you might as well eat something more than sugar while we wait for Tatsuya to arrive.”

 

“As soon as Muro-chin gets here, we will be leaving right away, you hear me?” announced Murasakibara, a small glare on his eyes as he allowed himself to be picked up by the back of his clothes by Kagami and be transferred to the dining table. “Don’t go thinking that Muro-chin will stay for dinner.”

 

“Why not?” asked Kagami, an eyebrow slightly arched as he curiously peered down at Murasakibara. “He should eat some good food before returning all the way back to Akita once again. Ah, wait. Are you really sure you want to go back to Yosen already? Will it really help you break your curse being there?”

 

“That’s none of your business but the only thing I need is Muro-chin,” grumbled Murasakibara, taking a hold of a teaspoon and dipping it in a small dessert plate half filled with fried rice. The spoon was still bigger than his mouth but quite useful to help him bring the rice to his mouth. “Whether in Tokyo, Akita or the Antarctic, if Muro-chin is there then there’s no problem at all~”

 

“You seem to be quite fond of Tatsuya, even though you were punching and yelling at each other during Seirin vs Yosen match,” pointed out Kagami, sitting down on his seat and readily starting to wolf down the fried rice – he had eaten quite a lot of food while out with Aomine but it seemed that the complicated and extremely stressful situation between the two of them had enlarged his appetite even further.

 

“Weeell~” smugly acknowledged Murasakibara after having wolfed down a mouthful of fried rice. “Muro-chin and I are suuuuuper close to one another, you know? Far more than you two are! Much, much, much more! Actually, I should be the one who gets to be called his younger brother, not you.”

 

“Huh!?” interjected Kagami, a vein popping out on his forehead as he slammed his closed fist against the surface of the table. “What’s up with that!? Tatsuya and I have known each other since we were kids and we have pledged our brotherhood through matching rings! Have you done that with him too? No way you have! You haven’t even known each other for as long as we have!”

 

“Grr…” Growling slightly at Kagami’s taunting words, Murasakibara put on his face the most threatening glare that he could at that moment and under his current physical circumstances. He sluggishly got up and used all the strength that he had on his body to throw the teaspoon against Kagami’s face, who yelped in pain with the impact and surprise of such action. “Fine! You want to be his younger brother? Be my guest! I’ll give him a ring and make him my bride! Brides have much more importance than brothers so it’s your loss there!!”

 

“Like hell it’s my los— Wait, what!?” started roaring back Kagami at the tiny, puny purple haired male sticking his microscopic tongue at him, but when the words being thrown at him truly sank in, he put a stop to his yelling and just stared completely flabbergasted to Murasakibara. “Huh? Bride? What are you— EHHHHHHHH!?!?!?!?”

 

“What? Do you have a problem with that?” asked Murasakibara with a sulking voice, crossing his arms over his chest and leisurely dropping his body back down to the table. “I will let you know right away that our marriage will have no ‘speak now or forever hold your peace’ because I could care less what others have to say about it.”

 

“…” Minute after minute passed by, Kagami silently staring at the pouting Murasakibara with his mouth wide open. Once his brain ‘rebooted’ after having ‘crashed’, he dropped his body back to his chair and put his elbows on the table, a deep frown on his features as he closely thought about everything. “Is perhaps the Generation of Miracles so ridiculously strong because all of you are gay? No, wait, I have no idea who Midorima likes so I can’t be 100% sure on it but if he also follows this trend, then what? Is he in love with Takao or something like that? Did the crappy biological advances that your bodies display alters your mating thoughts and now you seek those that stand on the same level in physical terms in order to successfully copulate and leave descendants behind? Wait, wait, wait… Does that mean… that if you have sex with Tatsuya, he’ll get pregnant? Kuroko will have Akashi’s demonic babies? The Generation of Miracles will procreate and expand and eventually rule the world!!”

 

“Kagami, I think you need to stop thinking with your stupid brain right about now before an accident happens…” groaned Murasakibara, rolling his eyes around at how idiotic Kagami's whole discourse sounded. “I didn’t get half of what you said, but you’re right. I like Muro-chin, Aka-chin and Kuro-chin like each other, Kise-chin stalks that senpai of his, Mido-chin… yeah, he’s probably in love with Takao. And Mine-chin… It’s painfully obvious who it is even if you are stupid enough not to see it.”

 

“Then, does that mean that you can really get Tatsuya pregnant if you two have sex!?” yelped Kagami, leaning his upper body forward and putting his face closer to Murasakibara, completely ignorant on what that last bit of his sentence truly implied.

 

“I will leave that to your imagination~” teasingly said Murasakibara, a mischievous smirk on his lips. However, as soon as he realized what he himself had said, an expression of utter disgust and repugnance appeared on his features. “Ew! Don’t! Don’t you ever dare to imagine me and Muro-chin having sex!”

 

“Why would I do something as traumatizing as that!?” roared Kagami, withdrawing his upper body from near Murasakibara’s tiny frame, an expression of disgust also twisting his face. “Fuck no! I can’t even imagine Kuroko having sex with Akashi, and he has been walking around me while sporting a boner underneath his clothes for two days now! But imagining you and Tatsuya having s-s-sex…!? Uh-uh! No way! Screw that shit! Don’t try to dirty my mind with your own perversions!”

 

“Oh c’mon… It’s not like you never fantasized about having sex with Mine-chin, right?” pointed out Murasakibara, once again rolling his eyes around as he leaned forward and grabbed a handful of the fried rice, readily putting it in his mouth with his now greasy hands.

 

“…!” Face exploding in a myriad of shades of red, some even darker than the colouring of his hair, Kagami readily averted Murasakibara’s gaze.

 

“Eh~ Nasty~” taunted Murasakibara, a knowing smirk on his lips as he amusingly observed the dead embarrassed redhead. “You like Mine-chin so be careful to not end up pregnant~ …Or get Mine-chin pregnant… As things stand, I have no idea how it would go.”

 

“Jesus Christ, don’t imagine that either!!” roared Kagami, slamming his hands on the dining table and making the whole furniture trembled around at the impact. His face even redder than before, he gave a tentative peek at his front door and then started to grumble to himself, “Where the heck is Tatsuya…? He should have arrived by now… God dammit, now it should be his cue to suddenly show up and take his pest with him…”

 

“Hey! I heard that!” complained Murasakibara, throwing a little piece of shrimp at Kagami but not being able to hit his body with it. “I want to see Muro-chin arriving just as much as you do! I’m sick of having to look at your ugly mug. I want my Muro-chin! Muro-chin, help me~! Save me from this dense idiot and his dirty thoughts with Mine-chin!”

 

“Well, this dense idiot with an ugly mug who has dirty thoughts about ‘Mine-chin’ has just confiscated your food for an undefined period of time,” grumbled Kagami, grudgingly snatching the small plate from in front of Murasakibara and holding it in the air out of reach of the smaller version of the once gigantic male. “Go cry to your precious ‘Muro-chin’ but I’m definitely not giving it back to you. EVER!”

 

“Stingy…” cursed Murasakibara under his breath, averting Kagami’s annoyed glare and the plate with delicious food floating above his body. “That’s why you are bound to be a virgin for the rest of your life…”

 

“Hahaha, says the  _ midget _ who got cursed because he can’t even confess to the guy he likes!” scoffed Kagami, a vein popping and angrily throbbing on his forehead. “Who’s the one bound to be a virgin for life now, huh?”

 

“Grrr… Bonehead!” barked Murasakibara, a deep glare on his purple eyes.

 

“Cookie monster!” barked back Kagami, slamming the small plate back to the table but not releasing it.

 

“Pea-brain!” barked once again Murasakibara, getting up from his sitting position and yelling at the top of his lungs.

 

“Ah-ha! You really think of nothing but food, don’t you, Murasakibara?” laughed Kagami, pointing the index finger of his free hand at the tiny purple haired male. “Be careful because I don’t think Tatsuya has a fat fetish, taking into consideration all of his previous girlfriends!”

 

“…” Hearing those words, Murasakibara readily closed his mouth shut and turned his back at Kagami, his hands clenched into tiny tight fists.  “I know that! I don’t need to be told that by you to know it! I’m quoting Mine-chin now… Go die, you idiot…”

 

“Ah… S-Sorry, I didn’t mean it like that…” quickly apologized Kagami, a pained stab on his heart as he was reminded of the words that the person he loved had told him not even a couple of hours ago. “This whole thing with Aomine kinda got under my skin and… I guess I’ve been taking it out on you since you’re the only one around at the moment. The whole thing going around Kuroko and Akashi also doesn’t help with the continuous terrible ball handling and ‘missiles’ thrown against my body… I’m sorry, Murasakibara.”

 

“…” He remained silent for a couple of minutes, breaking out of it once again as he sat down of the table one more time, though his back remained directed towards Kagami. “Well, I guess it is… By the way, why did Kuro-chin’s curse was to get turned on every time he’s around Aka-chin and not something along the lines of getting invisible?”

 

“Ahahaha! I asked myself that too!” acknowledged Kagami, a huge grin on the face as he pushed the small plate to in front of Murasakibara once again, who was slowly turning around to face him. “Do you think Kuroko is secretly a closeted pervert?”

 

“It’s Kuro-chin we are talking about here,” pointed out Murasakibara, taking a hold of a pea and starting to munch it. “He could be an alien from another universe or a secret agent from a powerful assassins guild and we would never know of any of it. So if he’s a closeted pervert or not… I guess only Aka-chin will know, once they solve it out between themselves.”

 

“Yeah, I guess so,” sighed Kagami, picking up his chopsticks and resuming with the eating of his own (gigantic) serving of fried rice. “I want to help Kuroko here, mainly because it’s a literal pain in the ass to play basketball with him right now, but… Akashi would probably gut me if I did something wrong… wouldn’t he?”

 

“Yes, I can see Aka-chin definitely killing you in the most original of ways if you make the wrong move about their relationship…” acknowledged Murasakibara, a shudder running down his spine at such a thought. “I-I think we should avoid doing anything about the two of them for the time being…”

 

“Agreed…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

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> You can show your support for my fanfictions and help me achieve my goals of self-publication for original stories in Ko-fi!


	21. Last Resort

For the first time ever in his whole life, Kuroko didn’t want to go to school.

 

Even while those nasty events during middle school and his broken friendship with Ogiwara had happened, he still kept enough dedication to his studies and love for the sport to continue attending school every single day – even if he ran the risk of having to interact with his former teammates after he delivered his withdrawal notice form to the attended captain of the team. Akashi, obviously.

 

However, the current circumstances were completely different from that time. Though Kuroko had absolutely no problems with attending classes or bumping into some of his former teammates now, he definitely had quite the big trouble to go to his basketball practices, mainly because a certain former teammate of his would also be attending them for the entirety of that newly started week.

 

_ I don’t want to go to school… I don’t want to go to school…, _ inwardly chanted Kuroko in the back of his head, slowly walking down the same path as every weekday morning. A tired and worried frown remained on his pale features as he stared down to the floor and tried to think up some sort of strategy that would get him to skip basketball practice once again. At this point, Riko’s wrath was the least of his worries (which he knew it could come at full strength in a single murderous blow), especially when his pride as a man would be tested by most likely having to attend practice while his brain was filled with nothing related to basketball and all related to getting his fill of a certain redhead.  _ Geez… Why does this have to happen to me…? Why couldn’t I have simply have become completely invisible or turned into a ghost or something like that? Why would the curse be something like… THIS? _

 

By the time Kuroko reached the entrance door of the gym, he had yet to come up with some sort of excuse that would get him out of practice, even if just for one day. The reason was, obviously…

 

“Good morning, Kuroko-kun,” greeted Riko, arms crossed over her chest as she remained right in the middle of the entrance to the gym. The scariest smile that Kuroko had ever seen in his whole life remained on the coach’s lips. “I take it that you have fully recovered now and will  _ not _ cause any trouble or miss the practice games against Rakuzan, right?  _ Right? _ ”

 

“Ah… Y… Yes…” awkwardly acknowledged Kuroko, quickly averting Riko’s furious gaze. However, a hand came forward and tightly grabbed him by the cheeks, forcing him to turn his face back up.

 

“You do know that you are essential to win the practice games against Rakuzan, right, Kuroko-kun?” threateningly asked Riko, the ‘smile’ stretching even further on her lips. “So whatever it is that is bothering you, throw it away to the closest trash can and get back on your feet! A special training regimen for after this week has lovingly been planned for you already so I will shower you with all of my love and affection after we  _ win _ the rest of the practice games. Understood?”

 

“Yes…” acknowledged Kuroko, his shoulders slumping down in utter defeat. Even if they, for some sort of lucky strike, won any of the games against Rakuzan, it would come with the price of Kuroko’s total annihilation, who would most likely die throughout one of the matches.

 

Whether the cause of death would be an intense nosebleed or simply out of sheer embarrassment over having a boner while playing basketball… only the future would tell.

 

-.-

 

“Game… START!” announced Riko, throwing the ball high in the air while in the middle of the court, announcing the beginning of the first practice game of that morning.

 

Nebuya Eikichi loudly roared, jumping high in the ground and taking a hold of the ball, readily passing it afterwards to Hayama Kotarou, a mischievous toothy smirk on his lips as he powerfully dribbled the ball a couple of times. His eyes never left Izuki, who was trying to keep a strong mark on him. With a couple of lightning-fast dribbles, Hayama skilfully avoided having the ball stolen from him and connected the pass to Akashi, who used his honed point guard position to get the ball swiftly delivered to Mibuchi. A gracious throw and the number 3 was readily pushed to the scoreboard – Rakuzan definitely was going for the kill already in the first minutes of the first game.

 

“Damn it… I have the feeling that this whole practice will go awry once again…” cursed Hyuuga, clicking his tongue in frustration at the bad feeling that was already twisting his gut. He sideways glanced to the crouched down bluenette in the corner of the court and then exasperatedly sighed. “Kagami, go check on Kuroko. Now!”

 

“Y-Yes… sir!” acknowledged Kagami, a shudder running down his spine at Hyuuga’s threatening and commanding voice. It seemed that clutch time had already landed on Seirin’s captain. He gave a short run towards Kuroko and leaned his body forward, softly whispering at him. “Hey… Um… How are you doing?”

 

“K-Kagami-kun… please just kill me…” weakly begged Kuroko, his bright red and panting features being hidden with the help of his knees and the crouched down position he had taken. “Go back in time and stop us from playing that silly game… Or put me in a coma… Drug me with powerful sedatives… Find a way to forcibly induce erectile dysfunction on the male body…”

 

“Um… I-I don’t think I can do any of those things…” softly answered Kagami, inwardly cringing at Kuroko’s requests and the reason behind them.

 

“Murasakibara-kun…?” asked Kuroko, his body fidgeting around as he tried to adjust his crouched down position to one a little more comfortable – in more than one sense.

 

“I don’t think he can help you either,” sighed Kagami, straightening his body and rubbing the back of his neck. “Actually, just leave him alone for the time being. He’s already plenty of heartbroken that Tatsuya couldn’t come to get him yesterday due to a problem in Akita’s railways. It seems a sudden storm hit Hokkaido and partially devasted the railway lines.”

 

“Uhh…” groaned Kuroko, inwardly cursing his bad luck. All of a sudden, he got back up, a decisive expression on his face and glint on his teal eyes. “Kagami-kun.”

 

“…Yeah?” hesitantly acknowledged Kagami, a suspicious frown on his features as he observed Kuroko and his sudden tranquil demeanour.

 

“Please keep the game going while I quickly go to the cafeteria and get a knife,” explained Kuroko, giving a decisive nod with his head as he started walking towards the gym’s door, his cheeks fully red. “I need to perform a quick surgery on my own body but I should be able to get back in time to help you win the game, if I don’t bleed myself to death.”

 

“W-Wai—! Don’t even dare to think of castrating yourself!!!” softly roared Kagami, lunging his hand forward and taking a hold of Kuroko’s arm to prevent him from mutilating his own body as a mean to extinguish his arousal. “Calm down a notch and think things through rationally, okay? There’s no need to take such extreme actions. Just… take a deep breath and calm down. You know the solution to solve this whole mess so just freaking put it forward and get over with your own misery!”

 

“I-I can’t, Kagami-kun…” said Kuroko, his voice strained and mellowed out with the scorching temperature of his sexually frustrated body. He slowly turned his head around towards Kagami, his cheeks flushed and eyes watery and half-lidded. “I can’t think right now, Kagami-kun… I just… Haa… I need to… I just want to have sex so ba— Mmph!”

 

“Okay, let’s stop right here!” interrupted Kagami right away, slamming his free hand on Kuroko’s mouth and putting a stop to his words before any of the two would come to regret it in the future. He leaned his upper body slightly and whispered to the fidgeting bluenette, “For fuck’s sake, Kuroko, I don’t need to hear your dirty talking nor get to know of your sexual needs. Get this done with Akashi once and for all and spare me the embarrassment of my life. Do you want me to just lock you two up somewhere and let you solve it out between yourselves? Cause a commotion and get morning practice cancelled? I’m desperate enough to do any of them!! Just please don’t say anything else about this, got it!?”

 

“Have you found your feet or would you like a hand?” asked Akashi, a soft smile on his lips as he walked over to the two enemy players and stopped beside them. His head was slightly tilted in curiosity over why they had suddenly caused the game to come to a sudden intermission without requesting any time out.

 

“Mmmmhn!!” moaned Kuroko, although his voice came out muffled due to the hand covering his mouth. His body shivering with unfulfilled desire, he clumsily motioned his hands forward and accidentally gave a powerful double gut punch to Kagami’s stomach.

 

“Gaahhh!” yelped Kagami, immediately releasing Kuroko and crawling his body inward, his arms wrapping around his stomach area as he tried to fight both the intense pain and the intense urge to vomit his breakfast. “Ugh… K-Kuroko… You s-son of a bitch… I-I’m definitely… k-killin’ you now…”

 

Those threatening words, however, were heard by no one – both Kuroko and Akashi were no longer on sight when Kagami’s body toppled down on the floor with a muffled thud.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mafy's Info:  
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> You can show your support for my fanfictions and help me achieve my goals of self-publication for original stories in Ko-fi!


	22. Reverse

“Haa… Haa…! Ngh… Haa…” His body was so weakened that all he could do was wobble around through the ridiculously large corridor that connected the gym to the locker room which belonged to the boy’s basketball club. Kuroko heavily panted while clutching at his own clothes as he tried to find some solace once again in the same place as the previous day.

 

_ I knew it… I shouldn’t… have come to school…, _ inwardly admonished himself Kuroko, his eyes half-lidded as he locked them on the door that gave access to his objective. With feet tripping all on their own, his shoulder came crashing against the wall, using it as both support and as a source of refrigeration due to the coldness it displayed compared to his smothering body.  _ I should have… pretended to be sick… and stayed at home… until Akashi-kun returns to… Kyoto… _

 

“Ahaha… I’m such… haa… a coward…” bitterly laughed Kuroko, sluggishly parting his body from the wall and resuming with his slow crawl to the locker room.

 

His wrist, however, was gripped out of the blue and his body pulled along in the opposite direction of where he was going. The door to another unused locker room was readily opened and then slammed shut once again with Kuroko now inside – together with the last person he wanted to be with in such a setting.

 

“Ngh…!” softly whimpered Kuroko when his back came crashing against the closed door as he tried to put distance between himself and Akashi, his cheeks puffed and red due to his hasty breathing rhythm and the heat that was drowning his mind in haziness. “Go… haa… away… Akashi-kun… Get away… ngh… from me…!”

 

“I will use the Devil’s Advocate and say that yesterday your words were a far cry from today’s,” pointed out Akashi, a small mischievous smirk on his lips as he took a couple of steps forward and shortened the distance between himself and the panting bluenette. “Or were they simply said in the heat of the moment?”

 

“Ahh… Ngh…” half moaned Kuroko, grabbing with one of his trembling hands the doorknob so that his wobbly legs wouldn’t fully give in under his weight. He tried to push his body as much as it was possible against the door, almost to the point he wished he could somehow fuse together with it and disappear from that place. Kuroko turned his head around and closed his half-lidded eyes, trying to not think about how turned on he was at that moment and how much Akashi’s presence was making the situation worse and worse.

 

Akashi, it seemed, wasn’t in agreement with it, for two hands gently grabbed Kuroko’s face and cupped his cheeks, forcing him to turn his face forward. For as weird as it may sound, Kuroko actually got proud of himself that he didn’t just climax at that soft touch and simply released a low growl of sexual arousal.

 

“Just say it, Kuroko, for I want to hear it straight from the horse’s mouth,” softly said Akashi, a serious demeanour on his features as he took one more step forward and brought the distance between them to an absolute zero. “I can only take your actions right now with a grain of salt. You continuously beat around the bush and get glad to see my back… but you still look at me as if the apple of your eyes. So I’m giving you a penny for your thoughts right now.”

 

“Haa… Akashi-kun… Let go… Haa…” beckoned Kuroko, his voice nothing more than a tired and exasperated whisper. He released the doorknob and motioned his two trembling hands forward, grabbing onto Akashi’s shirt and unconsciously leaning himself towards the warm body that just felt so cool compared to his own. “Go away… Ngh… Leave me… alone… already… Please… Akashi-kun…”

 

“Hey, Kuroko…” softly called Akashi, his thumbs gently caressing Kuroko’s bright red cheeks while he brought their faces even closer to one another. “Can I take that your actions speak louder than your words right now?”

 

“Please… haa… just go…” half moaned Kuroko, his watery teal eyes lovingly beckoning at Akashi as he leaned in even further to his touch.

 

“I guess we can cross that bridge when we come to it but I would rather not cry over spilt milk,” purred Akashi against Kuroko’s lips before he fully erased all distance between them and passionately kissed him, releasing his features to exchange for a hold on his waist.

 

“Mmhm!” whimpered Kuroko, his moans and gasps being hungrily swallowed by the kiss. He readily released Akashi’s shirt and lunged his hands forward. He circled Akashi’s neck tightly as he parted his back from the door and just threw himself at him, his sexual needs fully erasing the little bit of rationality that he still had in him. “Haa… Akashi…kun… Mmhm!!”

 

With a quick and swift movement, Akashi picked Kuroko from the floor through the means of his hold to his waist. Kuroko’s legs readily wrapped around his waist as he carried them both to inside of the empty locker room in between wet and desperate kisses. Once his knees bumped into the bench in the middle of the division, Akashi dropped their bodies on top of it, not wasting even a second to start pulling and removing Kuroko’s clothes.

 

“Ahh…! Akashi…kun…!” moaned Kuroko, his body trembling at the light touches of Akashi’s fingertips against his torso as he removed his shirt, his arms rising above his head to facilitate the motions. Once the sweaty piece of clothing was forgotten in the middle of the floor and their lips connected once again in a needy deep kiss, Kuroko grabbed onto the back of Akashi’s t-shirt, awkwardly tugging at it.

 

“I guess it truly takes two to tango,” chuckled Akashi, momentarily straightening his upper body and sitting on top of Kuroko’s lower half so he could also take off his clothes. Once a second piece of clothing was thrown away into oblivion, he lowered his body once again and his mouth connected with Kuroko’s neck, teasingly licking, biting and suckling into his hot and smooth skin.

 

“Ngh… Ahh! Haa… Ah!” moaned Kuroko, his body trembling against the bench at the augmented waves of arousal striking one after another with every little touch or teasing foreplay that Akashi did to his body. It wasn’t enough, however – not even close to fully quenching his desires. “Akashi-kun… haa… Not enough… I’ll go… ahh… insane like this…!”

 

“I’m the one about to go off my rocker… haa… with you giving the whole nine yards in seducing me…” purred Akashi with a husky voice, Kuroko’s bottomless arousal starting to instigate his own more and more. He allowed one of his hands to slowly motion down over Kuroko’s chest, gently caressing his smothering skin as it made its way to his lower half. Akashi took a hold of the elastic band of his shorts and tugged them down, together with the damp underwear, with a single jerk of his limb. “Ngh… I can’t turn a blind eye when you wear your heart on your sleeve in such delicious ways.”

 

“Ngh… Ahh…! Ahh!” moaned Kuroko, throwing his head back against the bench while his back arched above it, his body unconsciously accompanying Akashi’s movements as he slowly licked his chest and stomach while growing steadily closer to his denuded and aroused crotch. His hands closed down around Akashi’s shoulders, his nails digging into his hot flesh and imprinting themselves in reddish crescents on his skin. “Ahhh! Wai—! Akashi…kun! Ahh…!”

 

Opening his mouth wide, Akashi greedily swallowed Kuroko’s hard cock, the wet walls of the insides of his mouth pleasurably rubbing at the stiff member and tongue licking its length. He bobbed his head further and took in more of Kuroko’s cock in his mouth, slowly withdrawing once again as he teasingly pursed his lips and squeezed more honeyed juices from the aroused member.

 

“Ngh…! Ahh! Akas… Ahhhh…!” His body immensely shuddering and skin rippling at the pleasurable motions, Kuroko released Akashi’s shoulders and switched his hold to his red locks of hair, not knowing what to do with himself anymore. “Haa… Akashi…kun… I… Ahh! Ngh… I’m…!”

 

“Mhm? Haa… What is—“ started inquiring Akashi, giving one last long lick and suckle to the bluenette’s length before he fully withdrew his mouth and lifted his head just the slightest to peer over at Kuroko from in between the hands grabbing onto his hair.

 

What he saw made his whole body freeze on the spot.

 

“I’m… ngh… I’m sorry…” whimpered Kuroko, tears streaming down his half-lidded eyes and falling on the surface of the bench they were both on top of. “I’m… haa… s-sorry… Ngh…”

 

“Now you are just saying mumbo jumbo, Kuroko,” sighed Akashi, straightening his upper body and sitting once again on top of Kuroko, carefully so he wouldn’t hurt him in any way. He released his thighs and gently cupped Kuroko’s blushing features, cleaning the tears rolling down from his teal eyes with his thumbs. “Pick up your ears now, okay? I l— ………….I  _ hate _ you more than anything else in this world.”

 

“…Eh…?” interjected Kuroko, his eyes slowly opening in utter shock as a painful stab struck his chest, crack after crack breaking his heart apart.

 

“There’s nothing that I  _ hate _ more in this world than to have to take care of a  _ troublesome _ person like you,” continued Akashi, a smirk on his lips as he stared down at Kuroko with his heterochromatic eyes. “How does it feel, Tetsuya? To be touched and sucked off by a man that  _ hates _ you as much as I do?”

 

“A-Akashi…kun…?” stutteringly called Kuroko, his body now shuddering not out of unfulfilled desire but fright.

 

“Hey, tell me, Tetsuya… If a man that  _ hates _ you as much as I do were to  _ rape _ you right here, what would you do?” asked Akashi, lowering his head and shortening the distance between their faces, his smirk slowly widening more and more. “Would you still get this  _ ridiculously _ and  _ pitifully _ turned on by it? Or would you cry even more like the  _ useless  _ person that you are? Shall we find out, then?”

 

“…!” With his instinct of self-preservation kicking in, Kuroko quickly pushed Akashi away from him, causing him to roll off of the bench and fall on the hard floor of the unused locker room. Biting into his lips to try to keep his tears from leaking out, Kuroko sat up on the bench and sadly peered over to Akashi. “You’re… haa… the worst, Akashi-kun. I… hate you. I don’t want to… ugh… see you ever again…”

 

With his body still wobbling around due to the effects of his curse, heat once again starting to burn his body inside out, Kuroko awkwardly picked up his scattered clothes once again and put them on as quickly as his mellowed body enabled him to, not sparing even one more glance to Akashi, who was still sitting on the floor when he ran off of the room.

 

“Oh my… I  _ already _ expected that I would be cursed too…” said Akashi, tilting his head slightly as he observed Kuroko disappear in the corridor, not bothering with closing the door behind himself. “This will be a quite  _ amusing _ situation to everyone… I can already feel Daiki’s and Taiga’s  _ loving gazes _ when they find out. And Ryouta surely will run  _ into my arms _ while crying of  _ happiness _ over seeing me again.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mafy's Info:  
> [Twitter](https://twitter.com/Mafy_mod)  
> [Tumblr](http://mafymod.tumblr.com/)  
> [Ko-fi](https://ko-fi.com/I2I49KM4)  
> You can show your support for my fanfictions and help me achieve my goals of self-publication for original stories in Ko-fi!


	23. Doom

“Kagami…” started Hyuuga, a deep frown on his features as he remained sat down on the bench, his mouth hidden behind his entwined fingers as he stared away into the distance. “You have five minutes to find Kuroko and drag him back here. Even if he sucks at basketball right now, it’s okay. You seem to be the only one being hit by him or taking damages through his passes, so you’ll have to become the sacrificial victim so we can beat Rakuzan.  _ Is that clear? _ ”

 

“Ah… H-Hyuuga-san… You’re seriously scaring me right now…” hesitantly confessed Kagami, carefully taking a couple of steps back so he could put some distance between himself and the pissed off captain.

 

“Four minutes and 30 seconds,” reminded Hyuuga, sideways glaring at Kagami while slowly straightening his sitting position on the bench.

 

“I-I’m on it…!!” yelped Kagami, bursting into a furious run towards the open door of the gym that connected with the corridor that gave access to the locker rooms. A thin layer of sweat covered his brows as he quickly ran round and round through the whole building, opening door after door as he searched around for the bluenette. However, he was slowly starting to lose all hope of finding Kuroko within the time limit – if at all throughout the rest of the day. “Fucking misdirection…! Kuroko, you bastard, I’m going to make you into minced meat the next time I see you!!!!”

 

Kuroko burst the last door in that area open, which coincidentally was the basketball club’s locker room, and immediately skirted around through the whole division, even going as far as peeking inside of every single shower in the bathing area.

 

“Ugh… I’m doomed…” groaned Kagami, quickly running his hands through his red locks. Releasing a tired and frustrated sigh, he walked over to his locker and opened it, finding Murasakibara sluggishly binge-eating gumdrops in there – he was literally drowning his sorrow in sugar, clearly the alcohol to someone with a sweet tooth as strong as him. “Murasakibara, did you hear anything while you were here alone? Or better yet, did you hear or see Kuroko?”

 

“Kuro-chin…?” repeated Murasakibara, temporarily parting the orange-flavoured gumdrop from his mouth and thinking about the question for short minutes. “Nope, nothing at all… Just silence and thoughts of Muro-chin…”

 

“Ah… Right…” awkwardly acknowledged Kagami, feeling a tinge of pity towards Murasakibara. “Anyways, you have your cell phone with you in my bag, right? If you hear Kuroko or something, call me right away, got it!? Seirin is in an emergency state right now because of him! Or better yet, because of the lack of him!”

 

“Sure… I’ll try my best to remember that…” said Murasakibara, rolling his body around in the make-shift bed of candy wraps where he was nestling in and slowly resuming with his munching on the gumdrop.

 

_ You’re as useless as a doll right now…!, _ inwardly cursed Kagami, rolling his eyes around as he closed his locker once again and turned around on his heels, readily exiting the locker room to resume with his search, even though the time limit had most likely passed by a very long shot.

 

“Ugh… This is a complete waste of my time…” grumbled Kagami, clicking his tongue in annoyance. “With his lack of presence and ghost levels of misdirection, if Kuroko doesn’t want to be found, then it’s useless trying to search for him! Finding a needle in a haystack would be easi— Wait… Akashi! If I search for Akashi instead of Kuroko, then I may be able to find them! That’s it! I’m a fucking genius!!”

 

As his brilliant idea continued to morph around in his brain, Kagami started running once again through the corridor, ignoring completely the rooms where he had already stepped in and rushing in the same direction from where he had come from so he could scavenge the opposite direction of the corridor from where Seirin basketball club’s locker room was.

 

He stopped in his tracks, however, when an ear-splitting scream echoed through the whole building.

 

“NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOoooOOOOOOOOooooooooOoOoOoOoooooooooo!!”

 

“What the—!?” yelped Kagami, his eyes open wide with shock when he heard a familiar voice screeching in utter horror. Slowly, he walked towards the open door of the gym, the location where the scream had originated from, and, gulping down hard, he peeked inside. “That was… Furihata just now… wasn’t it?”

 

What Kagami saw inside of the gym was pure chaos.

 

Furihata was crouched down in the corner of the court, his arms protectively wrapped around his head as he slowly rocked his body back and forth, clearly teetering in fright. The rest of his team was all bundled up together in the corner of the gym too, Hyuuga, Mitobe and Tsuchida on the front line due to their bigger bodies as they protectively surrounded Riko and the rest of his teammates. Their enemy team was still standing by the bench assigned to them, their features ghostly pale as they looked at the solemn person standing in the middle of the court with completely flabbergasted expressions on them.

 

“My oh my… I was starting to get  _ excited _ over having to wait for you, my  _ dear _ Taiga,” said Akashi, a knowing smirk on his lips as he twirled a pair of scissors around his index finger. “It’s  _ extremely pleasant _ to be made wait but I had your fellow teammates keep me company in a very  _ enjoyable _ fashion.”

 

“Eh…?” interjected Kagami, fully coming out of his half hiding position and hesitantly stepping inside of the gym once again, an eyebrow arched as he carefully eyed Akashi. For some reason… he felt that he might be killed right there and then – a sensation that he had only remember ever having felt when he interacted with Akashi’s other persona. “Oh no…”

 

“Oh yes,” acknowledged Akashi, tilting his head to the left just the slightest as he looked over to Kagami with his heterochromatic eyes, glistening with excitement and evil machinations. “I  _ missed _ you too.”

 

_ Oh no, no, no, no, NOOOO!, _ yelled Kagami in the back of his head, quickly running towards Akashi and taking a hold of the back of the collar of his sports t-shirt, quickly dragging him out of the gym as if carrying a small kitten by the scruff of its neck afterwards.  _ Scratch what I said earlier, Kuroko is going to be killed after I get painfully murdered!!! _

 

“How  _ inferior _ to me do you think yourself to be?” coldly asked Akashi, his voice completely void of any good emotions and as threatening and imposing as the growl of a wrathful lion.

 

“Uwah!!” yelped Kagami when he suddenly tripped on his own running feet, going face first against the floor extremely hard – Akashi seemed to have been completely unaffected by it, for he simply remained with his arms crossed over his chest, glancing in Kagami’s direction with so much disdain that others might actually misunderstand the situation as a powerful emperor looking down on a slave. Keeping his anger well bottomed inside of him, Kagami picked himself up and, despite his initial intentions, roared, “Did you just fucking ankle break me!?”

 

“ _ No _ ,” shortly answered Akashi with a quick shrug of his shoulders. “You were grabbing me so  _ gentlemanly _ that I had no other choice.”

 

“Gosh, you aren’t speaking in riddles and idioms but you’re still a pain in the ass to understand…” groaned Kagami, face palming himself as he released an exasperated sigh. “Where’s Kuroko?”

 

“Not only do  _ I know _ , but I also  _ do not care _ ,” answered Akashi, switching his gaze sideways as he peered over into the distance in the half-lit corridor.

 

“Oh god, I have a really bad feeling about this but I’m still going to ask…” said Kagami, a deep sense of dread already starting to twist his insides and making his breakfast go full rollercoaster inside of his stomach once again. “You managed to find Kuroko, didn’t you? What exactly happened for such a…  _ thing _ to be happening once again?”

 

“When Seijuurou  _ kidnapped _ Tetsuya, they had a  _ brief conversation _ with each other and I  _ timely _ appeared, for a reason  _ known _ to the two of us,” explained Akashi, slowly returning his heterochromatic gaze back to Kagami. A mischievous smirk on his lips, he leisurely purred. “And then I told Tetsuya how much I  _ hate _ him and how much I would like to  _ rape _ him.”

 

“Dear Lord, what the heck is wrong with you!?!?” roared Kagami, feeling like slamming his head against the wall at the same time he slapped Akashi back to his senses. “Hate? Rape? Are you out of your mind!? You just doomed yourself for all eternity! Now we will forever have to deal with a continuously in heat Kuroko Tetsuya and two insanely delusional Akashi Seijuurous, one who is a pain in the ass to understand due to all those fucking idioms and the other because he’s just simply cuckoo in the head with what he says! Let me guess, your curse is saying the opposite of what you mean?”

 

“ _ Of course not _ ,” said Akashi, nodding his head softly in acknowledgement to what Kagami was theorizing about. “I tried to  _ threaten _ your team in hopes to  _ coerce _ them into cooperation, but they seemed to have  _ understood _ everything that I said and  _ happily accepted _ my words.”

 

“You sound even eviler and more messed up than usual…” sobbed Kagami, now definitely feeling utter despair over this whole ‘cursed jelly beans’ situation. “So… you’re also in love with Kuroko…?”

 

“That’s more than  _ questionable _ ,” sighed Akashi, turning around on his heels so he could return to the inside of the gym. “Tetsuya is equivocally the only person who can bring forth so much  _ hate _ from deep inside of me. Whichever one it might be.”

 

“Argh… For the first time in my life, I’m regretting having started playing basketball…” groaned Kagami, rolling his eyes around as he followed right behind Akashi and tried to come up with a way of finally explaining to his team what exactly was happening to both Kuroko and the members of the Generation of Miracles.

 

Yes, crazy days truly were heading at full speed in his direction.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mafy's Info:  
> [Twitter](https://twitter.com/Mafy_mod)  
> [Tumblr](http://mafymod.tumblr.com/)  
> [Ko-fi](https://ko-fi.com/I2I49KM4)  
> You can show your support for my fanfictions and help me achieve my goals of self-publication for original stories in Ko-fi!


	24. Cat Out of the Bag

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, everyone!
> 
> Good news and bad news! (well, not really bad news but it's a cut so I guess it can be viewed as bad news for some...)  
> Let's start with the good ones~ Code M - Level XS is back! I've started uploading Code M once again on a website called Tapas (you can find the link in the end notes below). You can read it for free either on the website or through their app. However, warning: it's no longer a KnB fanfiction. Yes, yes, I know, you all wanted to read it as AkaKuro and I can't blame you for it. But it was by my own choice that I decided to do this, not only to make the story reach its full potential (which I can't exactly do with characters that are chained to a different creator) but also because I felt that I wouldn't become satisfied with the story in the direction I was being forced to take it to (again, because I don't have full control over the characters that I did not create). I hope you please respect that decision of mine ^.^  
> Now, to the "bad" news. As you have noticed, I have a 5-day release schedule, where I upload a chapter from Mon-Fri and then take a break on the weekend. That's the best release schedule I can take on without draining myself. Well, now that I also upload on Tapas, I have to divide those 5 days between Tapas and Ao3. So you'll get two updates of different fics per week, Tuesday and Thursday~ Monday, Wednesday and Friday you'll be able to enjoy one more episode of Code M, if you'd still be willing to read it.
> 
> That's all I have to say~ I hope you enjoy this chapter! :D

Although everyone in Seirin’s basketball club already knew that those who were addressed by the title of ‘Generation of Miracles’ were all a bunch of remediless weirdoes, including the ‘Phantom Sixth Player’ that was now their teammate, the upcoming conversation that they were about to have with two of them came completely out of the left field and surely didn’t cut corners in making them seem even more ‘special’ than the rest of the basketball players – in one too many different ways.

 

“I’m… really touching Murasakibara Atsushi right now and not a miniature robot… right?” hesitantly asked Hyuuga, softly nudging the small version of Murasakibara with his finger as if touching an unknown life form.

 

“Yes, that’s without a doubt Murasakibara Atsushi, Hyuuga-senpai…” sighed Kagami, already dead tired so early in the morning. It had been a huge headache to explain the current circumstances revolving around both teams in this week-long training and four other more which contained the remaining ex-players of Teikou Middle School’s basketball club.

 

“So… that whole story of all six of them having been cursed by… magical jelly beans… is all true?” asked Hyuuga one more time, lifting his eyes from the tiny Murasakibara male and looking over to the two redheads that had been tentatively explaining the situation – although, for as surprising as it may sound, Kagami was being the one easiest to understand at that moment.

 

“It  _ isn’t _ ,” acknowledged Akashi with a soft nod of his head, even though his words came as a denial. “We  _ haven’t _ been cursed and, hence, we now need to  _ avoid _ confessing to the person we are currently  _ despising _ .”

 

“Right… Kagami, translation, please!” requested Hyuuga in a panicky manner, his face growing pale due to the threatening pressure that Akashi and his renewed heterochromatic eyes were putting in not only him, but all of his team.

 

“To put it simply, if all six of them confess to the person they are currently crushing on, the curse will be broken,” explained Kagami with an exasperated groan. “Each one of them has a different curse. As you can see, Murasakibara shrank, Kise is half dog now, Midorima seems to have life-threatening bad luck, Aomine… well, he’s no longer a he personality-wise. And, as you can also see, this Akashi says the opposite of everything he means to say while the other Akashi can only speak in idioms.”

 

“I have been  _ lying _ this whole time, just so you know, Taiga,” said Akashi, a deep frown on his features as he sideways glanced at Kagami.

 

“This whole conversation actually explains the weird conversation I had on the phone with Akashi-kun to arrange this joint practice,” acknowledged Riko, softly nodding her head in agreement as the dots of so many things finally started being linked together. “And it also explains Kuroko-kun’s current weird behaviour and utter lack of basketball playing skills. What’s his curse?”

 

“Ah… Um… I-I don’t think that Kuroko would like it if I were to say it out loud to anyone…” mumbled Kagami, averting making eye contact with any of his teammates while covering Murasakibara’s microscopic mouth by tightly grabbing onto his head, out of fear that he would blurt it out. “Much less in your presence, Coach…”

 

“Out. With. It. NOW!” ordered Riko, cracking her knuckles as she took a step forward in Kagami’s direction.

 

“Ugh… Kuroko’s curse is… to get massively… t-turned on… every time he’s around his crush…” confessed Kagami, fully admitting defeat towards the demon-like demeanour that Riko was directing solemnly at him.

 

“Turned on…? Kuroko?” repeated Izuki, laughter starting to creep up on his throat until he realized a particularity of the so-called curse. “Wait, every time he’s around his crush? Then… Does that mean that the person he’s in love with… is currently inside of this gym?”

 

“Ah…” Kagami immediately averted everyone’s half curious, half completely flabbergasted expressions, his hands awkwardly rolling the motionless Murasakibara around against his crossed legs, too broken hearted to complain about the rough handling to his body.

 

“He  _ isn’t _ ,” answered Akashi instead, one of his fingers pointing to himself.

 

“Eh…?” interjected the entire Seirin basketball team, Kagami included due to the fact that he had absolutely no knowledge that Akashi was aware that the person who Kuroko was in love with was him.

 

“As I said, he  _ isn’t _ ,” repeated Akashi once again while releasing a soft sigh, pointing a couple more of times to himself with his index finger.

 

“EEEEEEEHHHHHHHHHHHHH!?” loudly roared the whole team, Furihata toppling backwards on the floor in utter shock.

 

“Kuroko… P-Poor Kuroko…” sobbed Furihata, feeling more sorry towards Kuroko than he had ever before - even when taking into consideration all the gruesome training sessions he had been previously forced to withstand by Riko and the countless times where his existence was completely ignored due to his perpetual lack of presence.

 

“T-Then… who are you crushing on, Akashi-kun…?” hesitantly inquired Riko, inwardly cringing so hard at this whole subject. “If you requested to have a joint practice with Seirin out of the blue, it must have been because you had a reason to, right? W-Which one of u-us are you c-crushing on…?”

 

“The one I  _ hate _ can obviously only ever be Tetsuya!” announced Akashi, a knowing smirk (which was obviously being viewed as ‘evil’ by all onlookers) tugging at the corner of his lips. “Seijuurou also  _ lacks _ such  _ hatred _ towards him.”

 

“G-Good for you, Kuroko…” weakly babbled Furihata, slowly feeling his consciousness slipping away while being held against Fukuda’s lap. “K-Keep on running… for the rest of your… life… Gah…”

 

“F-Furihata…!” called Fukuda, slightly shaking Furihata’s shoulders after he passed out all of a sudden.

 

“So… um… Where’s Kuroko-kun right now?” asked Riko, now fully and so very terribly worried about Kuroko’s well being and, most of all, future. “What happened to him?”

 

“Tetsuya  _ was captured _ after I told him that I  _ hated _ him and how much I wanted to  _ rape _ him,” said Akashi, giving a quick shrug with his shoulders while releasing a soft saddened sigh.

 

“You’re scum…!” yelped both Seirin and Rakuzan basketball teams, all of them cringing extremely hard at the universe’s worst attempt at confessing one’s love to be coming from the one person who had always won and succeeded in everything he had done up until the previous school year, where he experienced defeat for the first time in his life when Rakuzan lost the Winter Cup final to Seirin.

 

_ Good thing Furihata-kun was already out when Akashi-kun said that _ , inwardly sighed Riko, softly massaging her temples with the pads of her fingers.  _ Or we would have a second victim to go with the brokenhearted Kuroko-kun… _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mafy's Info:  
> [Twitter](https://twitter.com/Mafy_mod)  
> [Tumblr](http://mafymod.tumblr.com/)  
> [Original Stories](https://tapas.io/mafymod13) [Code M - Level XS original story transformation now available here!!]  
> [Ko-fi](https://ko-fi.com/I2I49KM4)  
> You can show your support for my fanfictions and help me achieve my goals of self-publication for original stories in Ko-fi!


	25. Now!

“Sob… Sniff… Soooob… Ugh…!”

 

One of the corners of Kaijou’s basketball team’s locker room was filled with the endless sobs and whimpers of Kise, who remained crouched down near the wall while tightly holding onto his cell phone.

 

“D-Do you… think we shourd… intelfele?” asked Hayakawa, sideways glancing at the crying blonde, covered from head to toe in layers of clothing despite the considerably warm temperature of that time of the year.

 

“It would be a pain in the ass even to ask so we better not,” sighed Nakamura, ignoring completely their team’s ace and simply proceeding with changing to his training clothes. “Besides, you heard what Kasamatsu-senpai said yesterday. He’ll surely solve whatever is going on with Kise.”

 

“But… I think Kise is wolse today than yestelday…” pointed out Hayakawa, throwing one more glance to the blonde as he resumed with getting changed.

 

“It’s not our business for as long as it doesn’t affect our team and the practices,” added Nakamura, closing his locker with a noteworthy bang, purely brought forward due to the bottomless rage he was feeling towards the sobbing male at that moment. “Just leave him be and die!”

 

“You ale stalting to sound rike Kasamatsu-san, Nakamula…” hesitantly said Hayakawa, closing his own locker as he released a soft sigh.

 

“Ugh… Now I’ve done it… Sob…” whimpered Kise, staring at the screen of his cell phone with tearstained eyes. “Senpai… hates me… He hates me… I’m going to be a dog forever… Uuuuuuh…”

 

Since the conversation he had with Kasamatsu the previous day, where he ran off after being bitten by him, Kise had continuously tried to call Kasamatsu and had sent so many texts that his inbox was most likely filled up to the brim at this point. Out of all of his efforts, none had brought forward any reward seeing as Kasamatsu didn’t pick up his cell phone at all and there had been zero replies to his texts.

 

“I’m doooooomed…!” yelped Kise, his hands motioning up and grabbing onto the hoodie tightly wrapped around his head. Its purpose was to fully hide the dog ears which were momentarily completely inert against his blonde locks due to intense heartbreak. “I’m gonna diiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiie! This is the absolute worst!! What should I do now!?!?”

 

“Oh? Isn’t this Kasamatsu-san’s?” said Hayakawa out of the blue, readily catching the attention of the sobbing blonde due to his loud voice. When he quickly whipped his head around, he found Hayakawa holding one of the black knee-high socks that Kasamatsu used, even during practice hours. “Did he folget it here when we wele creaning the lockel loom on the rast day of plactice of rast yeal?”

 

Kise intently looked over at the black sock, his brain furiously turning its engines around as a current of thoughts and ideas permeated his grey matter.

 

_ That’s something that was in direct contact with Senpai’s body… And I’m half dog right now…, _ inwardly mumbled Kise, a serious demeanour all over his features as his eyes perpetually followed after Kasamatsu’s sock.  _ That knee-high sock must have Kasamatsu-senpai’s scent very well impregnated in it. And if my senses are really that of a dog, maybe I can have something like yesterday happen once again by using the sock… and find Senpai through his scent!! _

 

“I’ll be borrowing that!!!!!” announced Kise out of the blue, getting up on his feet and passing by the basketball players as quickly as an arrow at the same time as he ripped the sock out of Hayakawa’s hand, readily exiting the locker room afterwards. “And I’ll be taking a day off of practice! Oh, and school!”

 

“Wai—!? Kise, where are you going!?” yelled Nakamura, running after Kise as far as the door of the locker room. For some reason, he wasn’t able to match with the impressive speed that Kise was displaying, even with the stuffy layers of clothing on him.

 

“I’m going to go to Kasamatsu-senpai’s place and finally confess to him~!” happily announced Kise, waving the black sock above his head as he continued to run through the corridor only to later disappear in the midst of the door that led to outside of the gym.

 

“Maybe it wourd be bettel if we sent some solt of text walning Kasamatsu-san…” sighed Hayakawa, also popping his head out of the locker room just in time to see Kise fully disappearing in the midst of the access door.

 

“You know what? Just leave them be,” groaned Nakamura, rolling his eyes around as he returned to inside of the locker room and resumed with his final preparations to begin practice. “Kasamatsu-san needs to learn how to be honest once and for all, not just teach discipline to a puppy-eyed kohai due to being the older one.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mafy's Info:  
> [Twitter](https://twitter.com/Mafy_mod)  
> [Tumblr](http://mafymod.tumblr.com/)  
> [Original Stories](https://tapas.io/mafymod13) [Code M - Level XS original story transformation now available here! Subscribe for updates and more!]  
> [Ko-fi](https://ko-fi.com/I2I49KM4)  
> You can show your support for my fanfictions and help me achieve my goals of self-publication for original stories in Ko-fi!


	26. Epic

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can now read the chapters before anyone else (aka ahead of schedule) through my Ko-fi [here](https://ko-fi.com/I2I49KM4) .

“I-I can do this…” panted Midorima, using one of his hands to support his battered body in a standing position at the main gate of Shuutoku High. Absolutely no students were around him due to the late hour in the morning. He had barely made it in time to start 2 nd period in its beginning, after having gone through Hell throughout his once peaceful morning walks to school. “Yesterday… Haa… It was still an unknown… since I didn’t know… what to expect of bad luck applied to a school scenario… Haa… But today… I have all sorts of measures and fixes prepared for any type of eventualities!!”

 

Decisively, Midorima released the wall and crossed the main gate, his five senses hypersensitive to his surroundings as he carefully walked towards the building where the 2 nd year classrooms were placed. Out of nowhere, a football started going towards him at an impressive speed but the ever-ready Midorima simply skilfully crouched down his body, his arms wrapping around over his head in protection.

 

“Sorry, dude!” apologized a male student, dressed in his PE uniform. “I kicked the ball too har—“

 

“Heh… Hehehehehe!” started laughing Midorima, his shoulders shaking around just the slightest until he pushed his head out of its hiding location. “Today is the day! I may not have Oha Asa on my side but I will surely confess today! Hehehehehe!”

 

“Ah… A-Are you okay…?” hesitantly asked the other student, slowly taking a few steps back to put some distance between himself and male laughing like a psychopath.

 

“Hmph!” Midorima readily got back up once again and adjusted his glasses on the bridge of his nose, resuming with his walking towards his classroom.

 

The path was a strenuous one. Students almost crashing against him as they marathoned around the school grounds during their PE classes, the most varied objects that fell from the windows and threatened to impale or poison him (from pens and pencils to actual flasks filled with chemistries used in the labs), almost being thrown down a full lance of stairs when a passing by teacher tripped and the tower of books being carried on his arms toppled down on top of him – walking from the main gate to the classroom had been turned into a mission classified as “S rank” in RPGs.

 

“But I prevailed…” softly mumbled Midorima as he stopped right in front of his classroom’s door. He took a deep breath and motioned his hand forward, strongly slamming the door open the quickest possible so he wouldn’t be too surprised by whatever it was going to greet him from the other side. “I managed to reach the classroom alive!”

 

“Alive but late!!!” roared back the teacher currently teaching his subject on the front side of the classroom. “Take a seat quickly, Midorima, and do it silently, so as to not disrupt the class even further!”

 

“My apologies…” said Midorima, quickly adjusting his glasses as he shyly entered inside of the classroom. He threw a quick sideways glance at Takao and saw him almost falling off of his desk as he clutched his mouth shut, his body trembling all over the place as he tried to contain his laughing attack well sealed inside of his mouth. There were even tears in the corner of his eyes. “He’s just too adorable, damn it…”

 

Out of the blue, a strong wind blew most of the windows of the classroom open, spreading the papers on top of the students’ desks all over the division and creating utter chaos in between both students and teacher.

 

Then… it happened…

 

With the speed of a cannonball, a white shadow flew inside of the classroom through the means of the open windows, its trajectory straight to Midorima’s head, the tallest ‘thing’ inside of the classroom at that moment.

 

“UGH!!” groaned Midorima when a humongous white pigeon came crashing against his face, sending him to a painful fall with the back of his head against the hard tiles of the hallway’s floor.

 

“S-Shin-chan…!” yelped Takao, completely forgetting about his scattered studying materials and immediately running over to the fallen green Midorima. When he reached him, he quickly went to check the back of his head, fearing that the loud impact had actually managed to crack his skull open. “Shin-chan, are you okay!? S-Say something!”

 

“Ev…”

 

“What? Say it again, Shin-chan!” request Takao in a panicky state, shaking Midorima’s shoulders just the slightest to force him to continue conscious. “Don’t die on me, you hear me!? So repeat what you just said again!”

 

“Even birds… don’t want… me to confess to y…………………………………………” weakly mumbled Midorima as he sluggishly lifted one of his hands from the floor and motioned it towards Takao. He, however, lost consciousness before he could complete his sentence and his arm fell on the ground with a muffled thud before it could grasp its objective.

 

“Eh…?” softly interjected Takao, his body frozen stiff due to not understanding so many things that were happening all at the same time. “Ah! Wait, Shin-chan! Don’t pass out! Wake up! Dammit, you have to go to the infirmary ASAP and you’re too damn big and heavy for me to carry you bridal style! This is no time for you to go ‘Sleeping Beauty’ on me!! Wake! Up!”

 

_ Wake up and finish whatever you were about to say, for the love of god!!!!! _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

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	27. With or Without?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can now read the chapters before anyone else (aka ahead of schedule) through my Ko-fi [here](https://ko-fi.com/I2I49KM4) .

“Finally!” squeaked Murasakibara’s tiny and acute voice as he popped his head out of Kagami’s school bag. “Muro-chin!! Finally!!! Finally!!!!! Muro-chiiiiiiiin!!!”

 

“Murasakibara, shut up!” roared Kagami, aggressively pushing Murasakibara’s small purple head back inside of the bag. “I know you’re excited about finally seeing Tatsuya, but give me a break, will ya? What will people think if they see two guys talking in the street with an irritant and squeaky voice seemingly coming from nowhere!?”

 

“I don’t care about you two, I just want my Muro-chin,” said Murasakibara with a soft grudging tone as he once again popped his head out of the school bag. “You two have had loads of opportunities to confess already and blew them up all on your own. I have yet to see Muro-chin! Give me an opportunity to screw up my confession too, okay? ...No offence, Aka-chin.”

 

“ _ Offence taken _ ,” said Akashi, giving a small upturn to the corner of his lips. “What you just said is absolutely  _ wrong _ . Though it makes me  _ happy _ to hear that Daiki has  _ succeeded _ in his confession. I tried to  _ be a hindrance _ to him by coming to Tokyo instead of inviting Seirin to Kyoto but it seems my efforts were wasted.”

 

“Wait, Aomine was able to confess already!?” yelped Kagami, whipping his head sideways to look at Akashi with eyes wide open in surprise. That meant… Aomine had been able to confess to…

 

“Aka-chin is saying the opposite of what he means, remember?” said Murasakibara, rolling his eyes around. Kagami could be so dense that it was almost nauseating. “It’s more than obvious that Mine-chin hasn’t been able to confess yet. Or more like, someone didn’t listen when he was confessing…”

 

“Oh, right…” acknowledged Kagami, part of him feeling extremely relieved at hearing such. The other part felt guilty over feeling relieved. He awkwardly cleared his throat. “Anyway, Akashi. Have you managed to figure out where Kuroko is already?”

 

“I  _ know _ ,” sighed Akashi, the small frown on his brows demonstrating how much he was struggling to now put an end to this matter once and for all. It was fun in the beginning, but he wasn’t counting that the mixture of his feelings with his secondary curse would hurt Kuroko.

 

He should have just let his original self confess to Kuroko at first and then intervene on it later on. But jealousy was such an ugly thing. Akashi couldn’t tolerate losing against his own self and stepped out without any warning, seemingly at the worst possible moment.

 

_ It seems I just don’t learn, _ inwardly sighed Akashi once again. He had once deeply hurt Kuroko with his jealousy when he turned Teikou basketball team’s match against Ogiwara’s team into a taunting and crushing game. That wound had led Kuroko into quitting the basketball team. Kuroko might have denied it but Akashi knew that it had been the final push to take that decision. And now he repeated the same mistake all over again - only that the person he crushed and stepped all over had been Kuroko himself.

 

“Um… If I was Kuroko and had just been cruelly rejected, with threats of rape added to the mixture…” hesitantly started Kagami, softly massaging the back of his neck while he averted looking at Akashi. “I would probably go search for the place that gave me the most comfort possible. I mean, Kuroko totally would not close himself inside of his room and stay there acting all emo or some shit like that.”

 

“That’s true,” acknowledged Murasakibara with some soft nods of his tiny head. “If it’s Kuro-chin, he’ll probably be playing basketball somewhere to try to forget about things. Ah… On second thought, maybe he isn’t. Aka-chin was the one that helped him discover his basketball style so… Playing basketball would probably make him think about Aka-chin and make him feel even more depressed…”

 

“Then vanilla milkshakes are the only remaining option,” announced Kagami with a quick shrug of his shoulders. “He’s probably in Maji Burger or some coffee shop getting drunk in sugar by binge drinking vanilla milkshakes.”

 

“But I  _ don’t have _ his belongings with me,” pointed out Akashi, gesturing with his hand towards the school bag that Kuroko had left behind in school. “I  _ can _ see Tetsuya stealing milkshakes.”

 

“If he wanted, he could, with his misdirection,” sneakered Murasakibara, his head entering into fantasy land and creating an ideal world where he could get all the snacks and sweets he wanted by taking stuff from the stores for free through the means of misdirection.

 

“Kuroko is no Haizaki, okay?” sighed Kagami in slight exasperation. “Oh, we arrived at the train station. Let me call Tatsuya to see where he is.”

 

“Muro-chiiiiiiiiin!!!”

 

“I told you to shut up!” roared Kagami, pushing Murasakibara to the inside of his school bag once again as he fished around for his cell phone. Once he found it, he readily pressed one of the buttons of auto call and leaned the ringing device on his ear. A few seconds later, he was saying, “Hey, Tatsuya! We’ve also arrived at the train station. Where are you? ...Yeah. ...Yeah, okay. We’ll go there so don’t move from that spot. I don’t want more accidents happening before you can meet with your lil’ giant.”

 

“Kagami, don’t jinx me when I’m about to finally meet Muro-chin once again!!!” admonished Murasakibara, jumping out of the school bag. He grabbed onto Kagami’s school uniform and started pulling and yanking the fabric. “You’re a big ass jinx to your own romantic life, don’t you dare screw up my future home-cooked lunch boxes and dinners!!!”

 

“Atsushi,  _ quiet down _ and I’ll drown you in that fountain,” warned Akashi as he picked up the small Murasakibara by the back of his doll-sized clothes and lifted him up in front of his face. A ‘smile’ was twisting the corner of his lips upwards. “Understood?”

 

“Y-Yes…” said Murasakibara, his voice nothing more than a mumble as he pressed his hands against his mouth to fully seal it.

 

_ Something tells me you just hit a sore spot with that one, Murasakibara... Even if it was directed at me…, _ inwardly sighed Kagami, the hair in the back of his head standing up in fright of the demon-like switch in Akashi’s mood. Then again, Akashi had once tried to shove a pair of scissors down his throat - or screw one of his eyeballs, Kagami never fully understood which was the exact target - so what exactly were they expecting out of this persona?  _ Furihata is right, Kuroko should just keep on running away from Akashi for the rest of his life. But if he did, which parts of him would he have to leave behind? _

 

The answer was more than obvious to Kagami. Kuroko would have to abdicate his heart to run away from Akashi. And science classes had at least taught him that humans couldn’t live without one.

 

Aomine had also taught him the exact same lesson.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

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	28. Love like an Elementary School Brat

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Early access available at Patreon!

“Haa…! Haaa!” Panting wildly, Kise quickly wiped the droplets of sweat that had formed on his forehead with his sleeve as he stared to what was in front of him. He had spent the entire day running around through the streets of Kanagawa, hopped inside of the train halfway through the afternoon and had come off god knows where only to end up in front of an unknown park. What he did know, however, was that Kasamatsu was currently inside of the park. “Haa…! Heh… Don’t underestimate… haa… a dog’s nose…!”

 

With decisive steps, Kise entered inside of the park, his eyes carefully searching around as he continued to follow Kasamatsu’s scent. He didn’t quite understand why Kasamatsu was at a park at that time of the day but he also knew that his college classes still hadn’t started, so there was a big probability that he was there simply taking a walk or something along those lines. If he was there walking alone, even better for Kise. If not… he was about to become a needy guard dog, rather than a needy puppy.

 

 _No, no, no. We’re talking about Kasamatsu-senpai here, okay?,_ reminded himself Kise in the back of his mind, lightly shaking his head to try to shoo away such thoughts. _He can barely talk with girls, there’s just no way he’d be out here having a date with some random chick! That’s something I’d probably do in the past but Kasamatsu-senpai would definitely never do something like that!_

 

Kise started walking forward, his hand clenched tight around the leg protector his senior had left behind in the locker room.

 

 _Wait… What should I tell him when I see him?,_ inwardly wondered Kise, coming to a halt after only having given a couple of steps forward. _I should be at school at this time of the day. I can’t just randomly throw him with a ‘What a coincidence, I was also out on a walk’. He’ll definitely get suspicious at me if I pop out of nowhere, holding onto a piece of clothing that belongs to him and dripping out sweat from everywhere. Wha… What should I do!?_

 

“What are you doing here, Kise?”

 

“Hiiiiiiiiiiiiiii!!” screeched Kise, his body startling and straightening as if a sword stabbed into the ground. He slowly turned his head around, his mouth opening and closing as if a fish out of water. Kasamatsu was standing behind him, wearing his usual training clothes and chest inflating and deflating with slightly quicker movements than usual. He had probably been jogging in that park. “U-Um… W-What a coincidence, K-Kasamatsu-senpai… You also come to this park…?”

 

“...” Kasamatsu’s expression immediately went from a questioning demeanour to a disgusted face. When he saw Kise’s tail sliding from inside his clothes and start an energetic wagging motion, he felt even more reluctant over having approached his junior. “Why don’t you do something about that tail of yours first before you skip classes and come for walks at the park? It suits your current appearance though…”

 

“That’s exactly what I’m trying to do!” said Kise, fully turning his body around and walking over in Kasamatsu’s direction. “If I went to school, I’d probably be chased around once again by my fangirls or bullied by the guys during basketball practise hours! It’s better if I solve this curse first and foremost, even if it means skipping a few classes. That’s why I came-”

 

“Wait! Stop right there!” interrupted Kasamatsu, motioning his hand forward and ordering the blonde to stop. “If you get any closer to me, I’ll punch and kick you on the spot. I can’t have any of what happened yesterday repeat itself in the middle of a freaking park. If you want to talk, then keep a three metres distance at all times.”

 

“Ugh…” groaned Kise, coming to yet another halt. He could feel his dog ears lowering in disappointment from underneath his hoodie. His tail also came to a stop, becoming completely inert against his rear. “Senpai, that was an accident…”

 

“If you jump on others and bite them by accident, then yeah, I better keep my distance from you until you break that so-called curse of yours,” acknowledged Kasamatsu, crossing his arms over his chest at the same time one of his eyebrows perked up on his brows. “So? What do you want this time?”

 

“I… Well, it’s just…” babbled Kise, not knowing where to begin now that he was received in such a cold way. If he were to confess to Kasamatsu, there would be a 100% chance of him getting rejected on the spot. Being rejected by his year-long crush while with dog ears and tail… that would wreck the little bit of pride he still had in him. “I just…”

 

“If you want to apologise for what happened yesterday then yeah, okay, apologies accepted,” said Kise, after releasing a soft sigh brought forward due to the blonde’s indecisiveness. “Now get back to Kaijou. Even if you missed your classes, you might still get back in time for basketball practice. Your teammates are not assholes that would bully you just because you look even more like a dog than usually.”

 

“...is that all I am…?” whispered Kise, his face dropping and golden eyes getting stuck on the dirt path they were standing at. “Am I just a dog to you, whether I have a tail or not?”

 

“Huh?” interjected Kasamatsu, not having fully heard everything that Kise was mumbling about.

 

“At first, you were a real pain in the ass,” continued Kise, not carrying anymore. Really, at this point, what was there to care? His pride, the curse, confessing to his crush… did any of it even matter after all that had happened? “But I ended up looking up to you in my own way. You made playing basketball with a team possible for me. You taught me how to do it. You acknowledged my strength, even if all I can do is copy moves from other basketball players. You easily acknowledged me as a player, then why can’t you acknowledged me as a person!? What am I to you? Just the ace player of Kaijou’s basketball club? Just an underclassman? Just a dog-like guy who follows others around? I am none of them! Why can’t you just accept that fact and acknowledge that all of those things are what make me _me_!?”

 

“...” Hearing those words, Kasamatsu was left speechless. For as pragmatic as he had been as a third-year high school student, for as good of a captain he might have been for the basketball team, even if he never favoured anyone, classmates and teammates alike… he knew he didn’t treat Kise the same way as everyone else. Just the fact he had been avoiding him as much as possible since graduation day even though he kept contact with the other former 3rd years and the teammates that remained in Kaijou High School was more than proof enough.

 

“If it annoys you to have me around, then just be open about it and tell me straight to my face that you don’t want to see me ever again,” said Kise, tears running down his saddened golden eyes. “I’m not a real dog but… If you can’t own up to it, then don’t take a puppy in, raise it and then leave it on the roadside for someone else to take home! If you can’t look after me for the rest of your life, then you shouldn’t have made me fall for you in the first place, you big idiot!!”

 

“Kise, wait!” called Kasamatsu when Kise started running away deeper inside of the park, his golden furry tail hidden between his legs.

 

Had he been unconsciously hurting Kise all this time with his half-assed attitude towards him? Had he been unfairly demeaning Kise just so he could deal with the awkwardness he felt when around him? Those weren’t behaviours that a proud senior and a good captain would have - only the lowest of trash would even think about doing something like that.

 

“I really am a big idiot, aren’t I…?” mumbled Kasamatsu, his hands closing into tight, trembling fists. With an annoyed click of his tongue, he also darted running down the same dirt path the blonde had taken.

 

The park wasn’t exceptionally big and he had grown quite familiar with it, after jogging there every evening during school break transition between high school and college. Kasamatsu was sure that he would be able to find Kise fairly quickly and try to somehow clear up the misunderstanding.

 

“Hey, Kise! Come out from wherever it is you’re hiding!” called Kasamatsu, his cheeks slightly pinkish due to the looks he was receiving from the people taking strolls through the park. Since Kise was sort of like a dog at the moment, he might as well play the part and pretend he was purely looking for a runaway pet. “If you don’t get back here right this moment, I’m putting a leash on you and dragging you out! Wanna have that one ticked out of your bucket list? I don’t feel like it, though, so get your ass back here!”

 

After a nearly full lap around the park, Kasamatsu eventually bumped into a large bush that had trembled and rustled at the sound of his calls.

 

“Seriously, hiding in a bush? Just how much like a dog… can you… get……” snorted Kasamatsu as he steading grew closer to the large bush. However, what he found on the other side of the bush wasn’t the blonde model called Kise Ryouta… but a large golden dog. Kasamatsu’s face immediately went ghastly pale. “Oh no…”

 

Kasamatsu pushed the bush’s branches and leaves out of the way, awkwardly navigating his way to the other side. He crouched down in front of the golden-coloured dog and hesitantly petted his head, obtaining a happy bark in response.

 

“Oh Kise, what has happened to you…?” whispered Kasamatsu, gently grabbing into the furry animal’s head and lightly scratching behind his fluffy ears. They were the same ears Kise had in between the strands of his blonde hair the previous day. He felt a powerful stab on his chest. “W-Was it because of what I just said? Because I’ve been avoiding you since graduation day? Because I’ve called you a dog multiple times since the day you joined the basketball club? I-I didn’t mean all of that. Ah, more like, part of it was actually meant but I never viewed you as an actual dog. I mean, d-dogs can’t play basketball, right? I know you’re a lousy guy, really annoying most of the time and you have a terrible personality every so often, but I don’t want you to become a dog. It was wrong of me to avoid you like that without giving you any explanation but… I… just don’t know how to deal with you outside of basketball.”

 

“Um… Senpai…?”

 

“Good, so you can still talk like a human. It’s my turn to talk now, though, so pipe down for a while,” said Kasamatsu, giving a light tug to the dog’s furry ear to quiet it down. He made sure to keep his eyes down on the dirt, it was just too embarrassing to look Kise straight in the eye at the moment, whether he was a dog or not. “Um, where was I…? Um… I just said I don’t know how to deal with you outside of the court, but I actually also didn’t know how to deal with you during club activities either… All of those kicks and punches, every time I yelled at you or told you to run additional laps… That was just me not knowing what to do at those moments. I don’t hate you enough to beat you up at any given opportunity. Better yet, I don’t hate you at all… I didn’t mean to hurt you with the way I behaved, I didn’t mean to hurt you with my admonishments. I didn’t mean to avoid you or lead you into thinking that I hated you or wanted to throw you away and never see you again. It’s just… Shit, this really is the kind of bullying only an elementary school brat would think of doi-”

 

Out of the blue, the large dog’s ears perked up, pushing Kasamatsu’s hands away from his head. The dog then leisurely jumped inside of the bush and ran off through the dirt path back to the grass area.

 

“Eh?” interjected Kasamatsu, left staring into the hole the large dog left on the bush as it ran towards a petit woman holding into a leash. When he stood up as if lightning had hit him, his mouth hanging wide open in shock at what he had just seen, his eyes bumped into another fluffy eared being. “Eh…?”

 

“Um…” hesitantly started Kise, awkwardly massaging the back of his neck as he averted looking straight to Kasamatsu’s eyes. “I think… you just mistook me for someone else… Kasamatsu-senpai…”

 

“...!!!!” In a fraction of a second, Kasamatsu’s face became as scarlet and hot as the inside of an erupting volcano. “D-Did you… you… hear…?”

 

“Even though you’re older than me, you’re surprisingly childish, Kasamatsu-senpai,” said Kise, a large smile readily tugging at the corner of his lips. “Since you’re so shy around ladies, I never pegged you to be the type that bullies the person they like.”

 

“W-W-Who shaid I like you!!!!!!” stammered Kasamatsu, stumbling on his words as he lunged his fist forward and punched Kise straight on his face. Though it should have been mortal to human beings, the hotness he felt on his face escalated to even higher temperatures.

 

“Not the face!!” yelped Kise, motioning his hands to his face and massaging the place that had been punched. “I’ll need it a lot to make up for all the work I had to postpone because of the cursed jelly beans.”

 

“T-The ears are still right the-” started Kasamatsu, his trembling hand pointing at the perky dog ears on top of the blonde’s head, but his voice was swallowed when a pair of lips came crashing down against him. “...!!”

 

“I love you, Kasamatsu-senpai!” confessed Kise, slowly parting his lips from Kasamatsu’s. A happy smile was once again present on his features, even though they were now a little bit bruised and swollen. “I really love you! I’m head over heels in love with you, whether you punch me, kick me, cuss at me, or bully me!! Do you wanna throw away the senpai-kouhai thingy and the former basketball teammates past and go for boyfriends from now on?”

 

“...!! Ah… Yo… Do… Don’t be so casual about something as big as dating, you fucking perverted dog!!!!”

 

“Ouch!!! I-I told to not hit the face, you big, childish meanie!!!!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mafy's Info:  
> [Twitter](https://twitter.com/Mafy_mod)  
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> [Patreon](https://www.patreon.com/mafy) \- Mafy's Patreon is now available, with early access to all releases in Ao3! Even the smallest of helps are appreciated, or I won't be able to keep on writing like I am right now.  
> [Ko-fi](https://ko-fi.com/I2I49KM4) \- If you just want to give a one-time help, this is the one to go for!


	29. Murphy’s Law

“Tatsuya!” called Kagami as a greeting, one of his hands raised high in the air as he signalised his position to his childhood friend.

 

“Muro-chin!!!!” also yelled Murasakibara in tandem, his tiny arms flexing over Kagami’s school bag so he could push his small body out of its insides. After some wobbly and awkward motions, Murasakibara managed to come to a standing position and fearlessly jumped out of the bag, despite the height between him and the floor. Although the landing caused painful electric shocks from the base of his feet to his spine, he darted running in Himuro’s direction as if there was no tomorrow. “Muro-chin! Muro-chin!!!”

 

“Woah, careful there, Murasakibara!” warned Kagami, taking three large steps forward and grabbing the tiny purple-haired male right before he was squashed underneath a passerby’s foot. “Have you lost your freaking mind!?”

 

“Muro-chin is right there!” said Murasakibara, wiggling his body around to try to free himself from Kagami’s grip. “He’s right over there!! Damn it… being tiny is such a pain in the ass! Muro-chin!!!”

 

“Being run over by people or cars will  _ surely help _ you confess to your  _ hated _ one,” sighed Akashi, lightly shaking his head in dissatisfaction. “You should  _ not think _ before you do  _ nothing _ , Atsushi.”

 

“Tatsuya is walking towards us so just sit tight there for a couple more of seconds, okay?” instructed Kagami, placing Murasakibara back on top of his school bag, not inside of it. “You’ve seen how dangerous and heartbreaking the jelly bean curse can be. Don’t kill yourself or try to heartbreak or ruin your chances of succeeding.”

 

“Taiga,” shortly warned Akashi, sideways glaring at Kagami with a deep, offended frown on his face. “That was  _ called _ for.”

 

“Oh shut it,” grumbled Kagami, rolling his eyes around. “Have you or have you not sabotaged yourself multiple times already?”

 

“... _ No _ …” grudgingly replied Akashi, adjusting the strap of his and Kuroko’s school bags over his shoulders.

 

“Long time no see, Taiga!” greeted Himuro in English, a small smile on his lips as he gave a short run in the small group’s direction. Once he stopped in front of the redhead, he crouched down right next to his school bag, his smile stretching a little bit more. “Atsushi, I’m sorry for being late.”

 

“Muro-chin!!!!!!” squeaked Murasakibara, once again jumping out of Kagami’s bag and skydiving against Himuro’s face. He grabbed onto his long black bangs with his tiny hands and supported his small feet on Himuro’s nose. “Muro-chin!!! Muro-chin!!!”

 

“Ahahaha. Calm down, Atsushi,” laughed Himuro, carefully removing Murasakibara from his face and placing him on top of his palms. “It really is a complete 180 to see you this small.”

 

“If I hadn’t seen Murasakibara, I would have thought that their so-called ‘jelly bean curse’ was them trying to pull my leg or something,” acknowledged Kagami, adjusting the strap of his school bag over his shoulder. “Faking bad luck or a different personality, speaking in idioms or putting on a dog cosplay would be easy. But creating a miniature robot of Murasakibara that looks this real would be impossible, even for the Generation of Miracles.”

 

“Yes, I can imagine,” acknowledged Himuro, gently ruffling Murasakibara’s head with his fingers. He switched his gaze to the unusual presence around Kagami, then. “What happened to Kuroko? I’ve never seen you walking around town after classes without him and with two members of the Generation of Miracles.”

 

“Ahh… That’s a long story…” grumbled Kagami, awkwardly massaging the back of his neck while averting looking to Akashi and the cranky expression that popped out on his face. “But now that we’ve completed our delivery to you, we’ll be solving that one next. Hopefully…”

 

“Muro-chin, let’s dump those two hopeless cases and go back to Akita,” urged Murasakibara, grabbing onto Himuro’s fingers and lightly pulling them in his direction. “I really need to talk with you and I’m hungry and I don’t want their hopelessness rubbing off on me even more.”

 

“I see your asshole personality has made a comeback already,” scoffed Kagami, giving a quick flick to the back of Murasakibara’s head. He was complaining but it was better than seeing him half-dead inside of his locker or school bag.

 

“You’re  _ not _ asking for  _ tranquillity _ there, Atsushi,” said Akashi, crossing his arms over his chest as he observed the small Murasakibara with an eyebrow slightly arched.

 

“My curse is being small and I’ve reached my destination,” smugly said Murasakibara, sticking his tiny tongue out at the two redheads. “What could go wro-”

 

It happened in the fraction of a second.

 

Out of nowhere, a large black cat jumped in Himuro’s direction and bit down at Murasakibara’s clothes. After throwing a mischievous cat smirk at the humans staring flabbergasted at it and the small human hanging from its mouth, the cat turned its head away and ran from the sidewalk into an alley.

 

“...Eh…?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mafy's Info:  
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> [Original Stories](https://tapas.io/mafymod13) [Code M - Level XS and Shattered Miracles original story transformation now available here! Subscribe for updates and more!]  
> [Patreon](https://www.patreon.com/mafy) \- Mafy's Patreon is now available, with early access to all releases in Ao3! Even the smallest of helps are appreciated, or I won't be able to keep on writing like I am right now.  
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End file.
